Protective effect of total flavonoids from Spirodela polyrrhiza (L.) Schleid on human umbilical vein endothelial cell damage induced by hydrogen peroxide

In this study, we determined the protective effect of total flavonoids from Spirodela polyrrhiza (L.) Schleid (STF), which is a kind of traditional Chinese medicine, on human umbilical vein endothelial cells (ECV-304) damage induced by hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). Treated with 1 mmol/L H2O2 for 1 h, the viability of ECV-304 cells markedly decreased. However, pretreatment with 10–50 μg/mL STF resulted in a significant recovery. The survival rate of ECV-304 increased from 21.98% (only treated with 1 mmol/L H2O2) to 64.74% (pretreated with 50 μg/mL STF), which accompanied with the amounts of malondialdenhyde (MDA) decreasing from 1.6883 nmol/L to 0.9628 nmol/L. Furthermore, compared with control group, the 50 μmol/L STF pretreatment enhanced the total antioxidant capacity (T-AOC) by 4.49 times, increased the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GPX) by 85.12%, 158.94% and 94.5%,respectively, and increased the content of nitric oxide (NO) by 116.55%.Taken together, STF protect ECV-304 cells against H2O2 damage by enhancing the antioxidant ability and increasing NO production.