Safflor yellow A protects vascular endothelial cells from ox-LDL-mediated damage

Abstract

Atherosclerosis is a chronic disease of arteries, which constitutes the pathological basis of a series of cardiovascular diseases. The inflammatory response of vascular endothelial cells mediated by oxidized low density lipoprotein (ox-LDL) is the early behavior and main signal of atherosclerosis. In this study, the damage model of vascular endothelial cells treated with ox-LDL was used to reproduce the damage process of vascular endothelial cells in the process of atherosclerosis. Cell viability was detected by CCK-8. The release levels of reactive oxygen species, nitric oxide, and superoxide dismutase (SOD) were detected by commercial kits. EdU cell proliferation assay was used to detect cell proliferation, real-time fluorescent quantitative PCR and Western blot were used to detect the expression level of related genes. The results showed we successfully constructed a vascular endothelial injury model by incubating vascular endothelial cells with gradient concentrations of ox-LDL. The incubation of safflor yellow A (SYA) partially restored the loss of viability of vascular endothelial cells mediated by ox-LDL, and SYA could promote the proliferation of injured vascular endothelial cells. In addition, SYA may transmit related signals through the AMPK pathway to protect vascular endothelial cells from ox-LDL-mediated damage. All these results provide a further understanding of the occurrence and development of atherosclerosis, provide a theoretical basis for the use of SYA-related drugs in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases, and provide a reference paradigm for studying the pharmacology, toxicology, and mechanism of action of key active substances in TCM.

Keywords:

• Atherosclerosis
• safflor yellow A
• proliferation
• ox-LDL
• AMPK

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author contributions

You-Li Zhu and Ming Li designed research; Hu Zhang, Li-Juan Fan, Jun Liu, Jia-Qi Zhu, performed research; Hu Zhang, Li-Juan Fan and Ting-Ting Tan analyzed data; Hu Zhang and You-Li Zhu wrote the paper.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by Hubei Province Traditional Chinese Medicine, Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine Scientific Research Project [No. 2013Z-Y46] and Hubei Province Key Laboratory of Occupational Hazard Identification and Control, Wuhan University of Science and Technology [No. OHIC2019Y04].