A polysaccharide of Dendrobium officinale ameliorates H2O2-induced apoptosis in H9c2 cardiomyocytes via PI3K/AKT and MAPK pathways

Dendrobium officinale is one valuable traditional Chinese medicine, which has skyscraping medicinal value. Polysaccharide is the main active ingredient in D. officinale; its antioxidant activity is a hot research topic nowadays. Oxidative stress plays an important role in the pathological progress of a variety of cardiovascular disease, as one of key factors of cardiomyocyte apoptosis. This research adopts a model of H2O2 induction-H9c2 cardiomyocytes apoptosis, aiming to study the effect of Dendrobium officinale Polysaccharide (DOP-GY) for cardiomyocyte apoptosis caused by oxidative stress and its possible mechanism. Our results showed that pretreatment of DOP-GY (low dose: 6.25 μg/mL, medium dose: 12.5 μg/mL, high dose: 25 μg/mL) followed by a 2 h incubation with 200 μM H2O2 elevated the survival rate, cutted the LDH leakage, reduced lipid peroxidation damage, improved the activity of the endogenous antioxidant enzymes. In addition, the pretreatment of DOP-GY significantly inhibited the production of ROS, declined of the mitochondrial membrane potential, down-regulated pro-apoptosis protein and up-regulated anti-apoptosis protein. The protective effect was correlated with the PI3K/Akt and MAPK signal pathway. Collectively, these observations suggest that DOY-GY has the potential to exert cardioprotective effects against H2O2-induced H9c2 cardiomyocyte apoptosis.