[Prevention effect of Ligusticum chuanxiong extraction against oxidative stress injury induced by myocardial ischemia through activation of Nrf2 signaling pathway].

Ligusticum chuanxiong is one of the common traditional Chinese medicinal herbs for treating various cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, and a number of previous studies have demonstrated that the extract of L. chuanxiong has strong antioxidative activity. This paper was mainly aimed to investigate the effects and possible mechanisms of L. chuanxiong extraction on oxidative stress induced by myocardial ischemia injury in rats. The rats were subcutaneously injected with isoprenaline hydrochloride to induce myocardial ischemia injury and treated for 2 weeks. Then the cardiac indexes of the rats were recorded. The concentration of malondialdehyde (MDA) and activities of serum creatine kinase (CK), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), aspartate transaminase (AST), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and total antioxidant capacity (T-AOC) were measured by colorimetry. Light microscope was used to observe the morphological changes of myocardium, and the protein expressions of nuclear factor E2 related factor 2 (Nrf2), quinone oxidoreductase (NQO1) and hemeoxygenase-1 (HO-1) in cardiac tissue were evaluated by Western blot. The results showed that L. chuanxiong extraction could decrease cardiac indexes and the values of CK, LDH and AST in blood serum, increase activities of serum SOD and T-AOC, reduce serum MDA concentration, improve myocardium structure after ischemia injury, and up-regulate the protein expressions of Nrf2, NQO1 and HO-1 in cardiac tissue. These findings revealed that the cardioprotective effects of L. chuanxiong extraction may be related to inhibiting oxidative stress through the activation of Nrf2 signaling pathway.