Naringenin alleviates high D-glucose-induced injuries through upregulation of microRNA-30d-5p level in human AC16 cardiac cells

Abstract

As a common complication of diabetes mellitus (DM), diabetic cardiomyopathy (DCM) is considered to be one of the major causes of mortality and morbidity. The therapeutic effects of naringenin have been verified in the treatment of various human diseases. However, the application of naringenin in the treatment of DCM still has not been reported. In this study, human AC16 cardiac cells were treated with normal d-glucose and high d-glucose (HG). After transfection with miR-30d-5p inhibitor, Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) method was used to measure cell viability. Hoechst 33258 staining was performed to observe the morphological changes of nucleus. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was performed to determine the activity of caspase-3. Cell apoptosis was detected by Annexin V-FITC/propidium iodide (PI) staining. Levels of light chain 3 (LC3) including LC3-I and LC3-II as well as nucleoporin p62 (P62) were detected by Western blot. We found that Naringenin treatment increased the reduced cell variability caused by HG treatment. Naringenin also increased expression level of miR-30d-5p in human AC16 cardiac cells after HG treatment. Treatment with miR-30d-5p inhibitor reduced the effect of miR-30d-5p in increasing cell variability and reducing cell apoptosis. Naringenin treatment reduced the increased levels of LC-I, LC-II and P62, but miR-30d-5p inhibitor reduced those changes. Therefore we concluded that naringenin could alleviate HG-induced injuries through the upregulation of microRNA-30d-5p level in human AC16 cardiac cells.