BAX and myocardial infarction: These studies demonstrated that the pretreatment of rats with these compounds prior to isoproterenol-induced myocardial infarction, inhibited inflammatory cytokine production in cardiovascular tissue and augmented production and biological effect of non-protein sulfhydryls, catalase, superoxide dismutase and Bcl-2 (an anti-apoptotic protein), while decreasing expression of the apoptotic markers caspase-3 and BAX, along with inducible nitric oxide synthase, nitric oxide and myeloperoxidase [22].