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The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is an organelle in which proteins form their appropriate structures. However, several of these proteins become unfolded or misfolded when exposed to stimuli, including hyperglycemia, oxidative stress, ischemia, disturbance of calcium homeostasis and overexpression of abnormal proteins, which activates ER stress and the unfolded protein response (UPR). To date, investigations have demonstrated that ER stress is important in diabetic myocardial fibrosis by inducing cardiac cell apoptosis. Therefore, in the present study, the polymerase chain reaction, western blotting analysis and tissue staining were performed to identify the changes in UPR signaling proteins and apoptotic proteins in diabetic rats at different time points, and to determine whether the myocardial fibrosis is associated with ER-stress-mediated apoptosis using a diabetes mellitus (DM) rat model. It was found that the upregulation of ER stress markers and apoptotic molecules developed over time. It was also demonstrated that anti-apoptotic markers and proapoptotic markers were activated early following model establishment, and then decreased in months 4 and 5. The changes in myocardial fibrosis were found to accelerate in a time-dependent manner with apoptosis in the DM rats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]