Figure 8

Potential protective effects of eplerenone in chronic obese/T2DM hearts. In cardiomyocytes, plasma lipids can be uptake as FFA to undergo mitochondrial β-oxidation for energy supply. An overload of FFA causes increased oxidation and ROS, mitochondrial damage and apoptosis. FFA may also accumulate as TAG and phospholipids (PL) in lipid droplets, or deviate to ceramides. However, PPARα activation may be ameliorated in these cells (dotted lines). In addition, released aldosterone may bind cytosolic MR and induce non-genomic and genomic effects on pro-oxidative, apoptotic and fibrotic factors. Interestingly, eplerenone may mitigate hyperlipidemia (1), FFA-assimilation (2), delivering (3) and lipid-metabolites formation (4) (5), induce PPARα activation (6) and reduce MR-associated actions (i.e., insulin resistance) (7). NOX, NADPH-oxidase; MAPK, MAP-Kinases; PKC, protein kinase-C; PLC, phospholipase-C.