Danggui Buxue Decoction improves heart function of chronic intermittent hypoxia mice by promoting mitochondrial autophagy and inhibiting cardiomyocyte apoptosis

Abstract

The study established a chronic intermittent hypoxia(CIH) model in mice to investigate the effects of Danggui Buxue Decoction(DBD) on mitochondrial autophagy and cardiomyocyte apoptosis and explore its protective effect and mechanism on cardiac function of CIH mice. Forty C57 BL/6 N male mice were randomly divided into the control(CON) group, CIH group, CIH+DBD group, and DBD group, with 10 mice in each group. CIH was induced by filling the hypoxic chamber with N_2(90 s) to reduce the O_2 concentration to 5% and then filling the hypoxic chamber with O_2(90 s) to restore O_2 concentration to 21%, 3 min per cycle, and the CIH treatment continued for 35 d, 8 h per day. Mice in the CIH+DBD and DBD groups were treated with intragastric administration of DBD every day, while those in the CON and CIH groups with the same volume of normal saline. The cardiac function of mice was measured by echocardiography. The pathological changes in myocardium were observed after HE staining, followed by the observation of cardiomyocyte apoptosis by Tunel staining. The expression of apoptosis-related proteins pro-caspase-3, caspase-3, Bcl-2, and Bax and autophagy-related proteins LC3Ⅱ, LC3Ⅰ, P62, parkin, and cytochrome C(Cytc) was detected by Western blot. The mitochondrial membrane potential was observed using JC-1 fluorescent probe. Compared with the CON group, the CIH group exhibited remar-kably lowered left ventricular ejection fraction(LVEF) and left ventricular fractional shortening(LVFS), elevated left ventricular end-systolic volume(LVESV) and end-diastolic volume(LVEDV), disordered myocardial fiber arrangement, increased number of TUNEL-positive cells, decreased pro-caspase-3/caspase-3, Bcl-2/Bax, and LC3Ⅱ/LC3Ⅰ ratios, parkin, mitochondrial Cytc expression, and mitochondrial membrane potential, and up-regulated P62 and Cytc expression. Compared with the CIH group, DBD increased LVEF, LVFS, pro-caspase-3/caspase-3, Bcl-2/Bax, and LC3Ⅱ/LC3Ⅰ ratios, and parkin expression, as well as mitochond-rial Cytc expression, and mitochondrial membrane potential, decreased LVESV, LVEDV, and the number of Tunel-positive cells, and improved the myocardial fiber arrangement. DBD has a protective effect on the heart function of CIH mice. It improves the heart function possibly by promoting mitochondrial autophagy to ameliorate mitochondrial function and inhibiting the cardiomyocyte apoptosis.