Anabolic-androgenic steroids induce apoptotic cell death in adult rat ventricular myocytes

We tested whether exposure to anabolic‐androgenic steroids (AASs) would induce apoptosis in adult rat ventricular myocytes in vitro. Myocytes were exposed to stanozolol (STZ), testosterone enanthate (TE) and testosterone (T) (0.1 μmol/L, 1 μmol/L, 10 μmol/L, and 100 μmol/L) for 20 h. The percentage of myocytes undergoing apoptosis was determined by terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase‐mediated nick end labeling (TUNEL) and was found to be increased when compared to control myocytes at STZ 10 μmol/L 12 ± 2% (mean ± SD), STZ 100 μmol/L 42 ± 3%; TE 1 μmol/L 11 ± 2%, TE 10 μmol/L 21 ± 3%, TE 100 μmol/L 62 ± 2%; T 10 μmol/L 11 ± 2%, T 100 μmol/L 40 ± 3% (P