Introduction: It has been known that both statins and exercise have beneficial effects in preventing cardiovascular disease. However, there is no information about their combination on the cardiac cells apoptosis and protein expression of SDF-1α/CXCR4 after myocardial infarction. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the combined effect of endurance training and atorvastatin on the apoptosis and protein expression of SDF-1α/CXCR4 in rat hearts following myocardial infarction. Materials and methods: Forty five rats (8-10 weeks old, weighting 220-240 g) were randomly divided to five groups. Sham group, control group, endurance training group, atorvastatin group, and exercise+atorvastatin group. Myocardial infarction was induced by subcutaneous injection of isoprenaline (150 mg/kg) in two consecutive days. Drug and training intervention was initiated 2 days after infarction and continued for 4 weeks. To assess the apoptotic cell death and protein expression of SDF-1α/CXCR4 axis, Tunnel and IHC staining were used respectively. Results: The combination of endurance exercise and atorvastatin significantly reduced the number of apoptotic cells and increase protein expression of SDF-1α compared with the other groups (P<0.001). Also, the combination of endurance exercise and atorvastatin significantly increase the protein expression of CXCR4 compared with the control and sham groups (p<0.001) and with atorvastatin group (p<0.05). Endurance exercise training and atorvastatin alone induced significant decrease in the number of apoptotic cells (P<0.001), and non-significant increase in protein expression of SDF-1/CXCR4, compared with the control group. Discussion: results of this study showed that the combination of training and atorvastatin is more effective in reducing of apoptosis and upregulation of SDF-1α/CXCR4, than exercise and atorvastatin alone.
