Limiting Cardiac Ischemic Injury by Pharmacological Augmentation of Macrophage Migration Inhibitory Factor–AMP-Activated Protein Kinase Signal Transduction

Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) exerts a protective effect on ischemic myocardium by activating AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK). Small molecules that increase the affinity of MIF for its receptor have been recently designed, and we hypothesized that such agonists may enhance AMPK activation and limit ischemic tissue injury.Treatment of cardiomyocytes with the candidate MIF agonist, MIF20, augmented AMPK phosphorylation,...