Conclusions
It was confirmed that baicalin alleviated post-I/R myocardial injury and reduced inflammation via JAK/STAT pathway, and baicalin treatment might be recommended as a new approach for myocardial ischaemic complications.
Methods
We established an ischaemia/reperfusion (I/R) model using Sprague Dawley (SD) rat, then baicalin was intragastric administration (20, 60 or 120 mg/kg) for 24 h. The rats were randomly divided into five groups (n = 10): control, I/R, I/R + baicalin (20 mg/kg), I/R + baicalin (60 mg/kg) and I/R + baicalin (120 mg/kg). Cardiac function was detected by echocardiography, HE staining and ELISA, respectively. Macrophage phenotype was examined by flow cytometry. Furthermore, IHC, qRT-PCR and WB were employed to analyse the related mechanisms.
Objective
To investigate how baicalin protects against myocardial injury and to explore its potential mechanism. We hypothesized that baicalin-modulated macrophages change from M1 (pro-inflammatory subset) to M2 (anti-inflammatory subset) under I/R stress. Materials and
Results
The study showed that baicalin (20, 60 or 120 mg/kg) significantly improved cardiac function and impeded cardiac apoptosis in rats. In addition, the repair of myocardial morphology (reduced neutrophil infiltration) further confirmed its cardiacprotective effect. Moreover, baicalin effectively decreased iNOS, IL-1β and IL-6, and up-regulated Arg-1, IL-10 and TGF-β via changing the macrophage phenotype (from M1 towards M2). Notably, treatment with baicalin also inhibited the phosphorylation levels of JAK2 and STAT3.