Protective effects of Astragalus on hydrogen peroxideª²induced injury of cardiomyocytes

    LIN Aiª²Hua, ZHAO Qin, FAN Liª²Cui

    1Cadre¬ðs Sanatorium, Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing 100000, China, 2Department of Outª²patient, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi¬ðan 710033,China

    ¡¾Abstract¡¿ AIM: To investigate the protective effects of Astragalus (AS) on cardiomyocytes against hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)ª²induced injury. METHODS: Cultured neonatal cardiomyocytes were divided into three groups: ¢Ù Normal group; ¢Ú H2O2 group, in which cells were treated with H2O2(0.2 mmol/L) for 1 h; ¢Û AS+ H2O2 group, in which cells were pretreated with AS(with final concentration of 200 mg/mL)30 min before H2O2 treatment. Colorimetric assay was used to detect the mitochondrion activity, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activity, superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity and malonaldehyde (MDA) content. RESULTS: After treatment with H2O2, the mitochondrion activity was significantly reduced to 0.36¡À0.04 compared with that of normal group while the LDH activity was (27.4¡À3.2)¦Ìkat/L, significantly higher than that of normal group. SA pretreatment markedly increased the mitochondrion activity to 0.50¡À0.05 and reduced LDH activity to (16.4¡À1.8)¦Ìkat/L. Cells treated with H2O2 had a lower SOD activity of (231¡À22) ¦Ìkat/L and a higher MDA content of(16.1¡À3.0)¦Ìmol/L compared with those of normal cells. Cells of SA+H2O2 group had a higher SOD activity of (331¡À40)¦Ìkat/L and a lower MDA content of (10.7¡À2.4)¦Ìmol/L compared with those of H2O2 group. CONCLUSION: SA can protect cardiomyocytes from H2O2 injury by improving cell antioxidant ability. ......