Introduction:
Myocardial ischaemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Despite novel advances in therapeutics, the management of myocardial I/R is still an unmet medical need. Therefore, in the present study, we have demonstrated the protective effect of ropivacaine (RPC) on the myocardial infarction in rats and its underlying mechanism.

Material and methods:
Initially, the effect of RPC was determined on the infarct size and histopathology of cardiac tissues. The effect of RPC was also determined on the levels of various cardiac biomarkers such as creatine kinase (CK), creatine kinase MB (CK-MB), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), asparganine aminotransferase (AST), and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), and biomarkers of oxidative stress (MDA, SOD, and GSH) and inflammation (tumour necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin 1β (IL-1β), and IL-6). RPC effect was also quantified on cellular apoptosis and COX-2 and iNOS expression via western blot analysis. The RPC was further docked into the active site of COX-2.

Results:
It has been found that RPC reduces the improves haemodynamics of (LVSP and ± dp/dtmax, and LVEDP), infarct percentage and architecture of cardiac tissues of rats. It also reduces the level of studies cardiac injury biomarkers together with a reduction of oxidative stress (MDA, SOD, and GSH) and inflammation (TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-6). Upon administration of RPC, the rate of cellular apoptosis was found to be greatly reduced, with a reduction in COX-2 and iNOS expression. In docking analysis, RPC creates van der Waals forces and pi-interactions with Tyr381, Arg106, Val102, Leu345, Val509, Ser339, Leu338, Val335, Ala513, His75, and Leu517 at the catalytic site of COX-2.

Conclusions:
Collectively, our results demonstrated that ropivacaine showed significant benefit against myocardial ischaemic injury.