“Accumulating evidences indicate that onset of myocardial infarction (MI) shows obvious circadian rhythmicity. Clinical studies have shown that MI occurred in the early morning has a poor prognosis. But the mechanisms involved still unknown. Here we show that the expression level of the Period 2 (per2), in the heart of mice is lower in the early morning than in the noon, while raising the expression of per2 in H9C2 cells and rat cardiomyocytes increased autophagy levels. Further studies indicated that overexpression of per2 after MI improved cardiac function through increasing the autophagy. In summary, this study identifies that circadian clock per2 may be a regulator of MI.”
