Abstract: | Tanshinone IIA (TSIIA) is the major bioactive constituent of Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge, a Chinese herbal medicine, which has protective effects on myocardial ischemia/reperfusion (MIR) injury. However, the cardioprotective effects of TSIIA as well as its clinical use were limited due to its poor water solubility. The objective of this study was to evaluate whether Tanshinone IIA derivative (TD), a new water soluble compound synthesized by TSIIA and N-Methyl-D-Glucamine, had protective effects on MIR injury and what the related mechanism was. The cardioprotective effects of TD were evaluated and compared with TSIIA in a rat MIR model. The results show that pretreatment with TD significantly alleviated inflammatory infiltration and exhibited antioxidant effect in MIR injury by reducing the activity of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and malondialdehyde (MDA), decreasing expression of nuclear factor-κ-gene binding (NF-κB) and upregulating expression of heme oxygenase (HO-1), but having no effect on the content of total superoxide dismutase (T-SOD) and mRNA expression of superoxide dismutase (SOD-1). Thus, our study reveals that TD exerted significant protective effects on MIR injury through attenuating oxidative stress and inflammatory responses. |