To identify novel transmembrane and secretory molecules expressed in cardiac myocytes, signal sequence trap screening was performed in rat neonatal cardiac myocytes. One of the molecules identified was a transmembrane protein, prostatic androgen repressed message-1 (PARM-1). While PARM-1 has been identified as a gene induced in prostate in response to castration, its function is largely unknown. Our expression analysis revealed that PARM-1 was specifically expressed in hearts and skeletal muscles, and in the heart, cardiac myocytes, but not non-myocytes expressed PARM-1. Immunofluorescent staining showed that PARM-1 was predominantly localized in endoplasmic reticulum (ER). In Dahl salt-sensitive rats, high-salt diet resulted in hypertension, cardiac hypertrophy and subsequent heart failure, and significantly stimulated PARM-1 expression in the hearts, with a concomitant increase in ER stress markers such as GRP78 and CHOP. In cultured cardiac myocytes, PARM-1 expression was stimulated by proinflammatory cytokines, but not by hypertrophic stimuli. A marked increase in PARM-1 expression was observed in response to ER stress inducers such as thapsigargin and tunicamycin, which also induced apoptotic cell death. Silencing PARM-1 expression by siRNAs enhanced apoptotic response in cardiac myocytes to ER stresses. PARM-1 silencing also repressed expression of PERK and ATF6, and augmented expression of CHOP without affecting IRE-1 expression and JNK and Caspase-12 activation. Thus, PARM-1 expression is induced by ER stress, which plays a protective role in cardiac myocytes through regulating PERK, ATF6 and CHOP expression. These results suggested that PARM-1 is a novel ER transmembrane molecule involved in cardiac remodeling in hypertensive heart disease.