Differential Proteomic Analysis of Neonatal Cardiomyocytes in Response to β-Adrenergic Receptor Stimulation1

β-Adrenoceptors (β-ARs) play a critical role in regulating cardiac functions under both physiological and pathological conditions. To further explore the mechanisms through which β-ARs perform its actions, proteomic approaches were adopted to study the global protein patterns in cultured neonatal rat cardiomyocytes exposed to isoproterenol (ISO). A modified method, “Mirror Images in One Gel”, was used to improve the reproducibility and resolution power of two-dimensional electrophoresis. A 2-DE map with a good reproducibility was obtained in which 1281 ± 70 spots were detected and about 1191 ± 54 spots were matched, with an average matching rate of 92.9%. Nine proteins with significant changes were identified by using peptide mass fingerprinting(PMF) data obtained via MALDI-MS.