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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Ethnopharmacology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2025.1526253
This article is part of the Research Topic The Vascular System: Effects of Traditional Medicines and Mechanism of Action View all 7 articles
Danqi soft caspule alleviates myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury induced cardiomyocyte apoptosis by attenuating mitochondrial fission
Provisionally accepted- 1 The Second Clinical College, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China
- 2 The Second Affiliated Hospital, Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China
Myocardial ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury which leads to continuously worsening ventricular remodeling and cardiac dysfunction in the chronic stage, is a significant contributor to the global prevalence of heart failure. Traditional Chinese herbal formulas have been shown to prevent myocardial I/R injury. This study aims to investigate whether DQ, a traditional Chinese medicine, exerts the protective effects against myocardial I/R injury and explore the potential underlying mechanisms. We established a rat model of myocardial I/R and a cell model of H2O2-induced oxidative stress injury to assess the impact of DQ on heart injury, cardiomyocyte apoptosis, as well as mitochondrial structure and function. DQ pre-treatment reduced both the proportion of infarct area and ischemic risk area, along with decreasing cardiomyocyte apoptosis in myocardial I/R injury rats.In H2O2-induced cells, DQ was found to reduce cell apoptosis while also lowering oxidative stress levels. Furthermore, DQ inhibited mitochondrial fission, prevented alterations in mitochondrial membrane potential, and suppressed Cytochrome C release from the mitochondria, thereby averting apoptosis. DQ has protective effects against I/R induced oxidative stress injury by reducing cardiomyocyte apoptosis through inhibition mitochondrial fission. Moreover, DQ can restore mitochondrial structure and function involving the suppression of the CaMKII and Drp-1 phosphorylation. This study provides experimental evidence supporting the efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine in treating myocardial I/R injury.
Keywords: Myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury, cell apoptosis, mitochondrial dynamics, Chinese botanical drug, Cell apoptosis;, Mitochondrial dysfunction
Received: 11 Nov 2024; Accepted: 25 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yang, Lin, Wang, Liu, Chen, Ma and Ma. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Shiyu Ma, The Second Clinical College, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, 510170, China
Jin Ma, The Second Clinical College, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, 510170, China
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