金属硫蛋白（metallothionein, MT）是一类富含半胱氨酸残基的低分子量金属连接蛋白，广泛存在于生物体内。心肌缺血/再灌注损伤（myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury, MI/RI）严重威胁着心血管疾病患者生命安全，其机制尚不明确。文章描述了MT的结构及生理作用，MI/RI的发生机制，MT减轻MI/RI的可能机制以及MT在缺血预处理（ischemic preconditioning, IPC）和锌预处理心肌保护策略中的相关机制。未来对MT的研究可能涉及其在后处理保护策略中的作用机制与其他抗氧化通路的关系。
Metallothionein (MT) is a class of low molecular weight metal‑binding proteins that possess many cysteine residues，which are widely present in organisms. Myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury (MI/RI) threatens the life of patients with the cardiovascular disease while its mechanism is not clear. This review describes the structure and physiological role of MT, the mechanism of MI/RI, the possible mechanism of MT to reduce MI/RI, and the related mechanism of MT in ischemic preconditioning (IPC) and zinc preconditioning myocardial protection strategy. Future research on MT may dissect the relationship between its mechanism of action in post‑conditional protection strategy and other antioxidant pathways.
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