Synergistic Effects of Methylglyoxal and High Glucose on Cardiac H9C2 Cells

Methylglyoxal is a precursor of advanced glycation end products which is closely related to vascular complication in diabetes. However, the direct effects of methylglyoxal on cardiac myocytes still need to be elucidated. This study investigated the dose-dependent effects of methylglyoxal on H9C2 myoblastic cell. Furthermore, we determined if metformin would reduce methylglyoxal caused cell damage. Cell viability was evaluated by a cell counting kit-8 assay and intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) was evaluated via a dichlorofluorescin diacetate (DCFDA) assay. After incubation of different doses of methylglyoxal (5 µM-1400 µM, n=12-18) for 24 hours, lower dose range of methylglyoxal (5 µM-800 µM) slightly increased the cell viability by 15±4% compared to the control (n=12). By contrast, higher dose methylglyoxal (1000 µM, 1200 µM, 1400 µM) significantly reduced cell viability to 74 ± 6%, 63 ± 5%, and 56 ± 7%, respectively (all