Antioxidants Supplementation Reduces Ceramide Synthesis Improving the Cardiac Insulin Transduction Pathway in a Rodent Model of Obesity

Obesity-related disruption in lipid metabolism contributes to cardiovascular dysfunction. Despite numerous studies on lipid metabolism in the left ventricle, there is no data describing the influence of n-acetylcysteine (NAC) and α-lipoic acid (ALA), as glutathione precursors, on sphingolipid metabolism, and insulin resistance (IR) occurrence. The aim of our experiment was to evaluate the influence of chronic antioxidants administration on myocardial sphingolipid state and intracellular insulin signaling as a potential therapeutic strategy for obesity-related cardiovascular IR. The experiment was conducted on male Wistar rats fed a standard rodent chow or a high-fat diet with intragastric administration of NAC or ALA for eight weeks. Cardiac and plasma sphingolipid species were assessed by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The proteins expressed from sphingolipid and insulin signaling pathways were determined by Western blot. Antioxidant supplementation markedly reduced ceramide accumulation by lowering the expression of selected proteins from the sphingolipid pathway and simultaneously increased the myocardial sphingosine-1-phosphate level. Moreover, NAC and ALA augmented the expression of GLUT4 and the phosphorylation state of Akt (Ser473) and GSK3β (Ser9), which improved the intracellular insulin transduction pathway. Based on our results, we may postulate that NAC and ALA have a beneficial influence on the cardiac ceramidose under IR conditions.