Anti-apoptotic Function and Mechanism of Ginseng Saponins in Rattus Pancreatic β-Cells

Abstract

Apoptosis is the main form of β-cell death in diabetes. Ginseng has been used as an anti-diabetic herb for several thousand years in Asia with ginsenoside Rg1 and ginsenoside Rb1 as important active ingredients. In this study, we demonstrated ginsenoside Rg1 and Rb1 protect β-cells from high glucose/cytokine-induced pancreatic β-cell apoptosis via inhibiting nitric oxide (NO) production and regulating apoptosis-related genes. Among these genes, Bax, Fas and Caspase-3 gene expressions were up-regulated by high glucose, whereas only Bax and Caspase-3 gene expression were elevated by cytokines. In these two stimuli-induced apoptotic cells, Rg1 down-regulated Fas gene expression, while Rb1 decreased Caspase-3 gene expression. As a conclusion, Fas signal pathway and mitochondria stress is mostly related to anti-diabetes function of ginsenoside Rg1, while Caspase-3 pathway is essential when Rb1 is present.

Time‐Course of the Effects of QSYQ in Promoting Heart Function in Ameroid Constrictor‐Induced Myocardial Ischemia Pigs

“…Therefore, drugs that inhibit cardiomyocyte apoptosis in patients with residual cardiac function may be protective and may delay and inhibit the progression of heart failure. Ginseng, Carthamus tinctorius , and other traditional Chinese medicines and their active ingredients can inhibit cardiomyocyte apoptosis after ischemia [10, 11]. Qin et al have reported that inhibition of cell apoptosis significantly improves heart function in myocardial infarction rabbits [12].…”

The protective effects and genetic pathways of thorn grape seeds oil against high glucose-induced apoptosis in pancreatic β-cells

“…As in our previous study, 25 mM glucose was used in this investigation to construct apoptotic cell models with high apoptotic rate and low insulin secretion [38]. Mechanisms of high glucose induced β-cell apoptosis include increasing iNOS expression together with regulation of apoptosis-related gene expressions involved in three pathways.…”

“…In consistent with our previous observation, high glucose induced apoptosis via Fas signal pathway and imbalance expression of Bcl-2 versus Bax . The anti-apoptotic gene Bcl-2 expression did not response to high glucose stimulation, whereas pro-apoptotic Bax gene was increased [38], leading to the alteration of the mitochondrial homeostasis, and subsequent activation of apoptosis. In addition, up-regulated expressions of ATF-3 , JNK , p38 and down-regulated expressions of Akt revealed the high glucose induced apoptosis is closely related with ER stress pathway too.…”

“…Rin-m5F cell was exposed to the glucose of 5, 15, 25 mmol/L for 12, 24, 36 and 48 hours. The treatment of exposure to 25 mmol/L glucose for 48 h was observed with amount of apoptotic cell and high NO content that it was appropriate for constructing high glucose-induced apoptosis model [38]. TGSO with the concentration of 50, 100, 200 μg/mL were set for cell culture.…”

“…qRT-PCR was performed on the CFX 96™ Real-Time System (C1000TM Thermal Cycler, BIO-RAD, USA). Primer sequences (Table 1) of GAPDH 、 Caspase-3 、 iNOS 、 Bcl-2 、 Bax and Fas were referred to our previous study [38] while the others ( ATF-3 、 JNK 、 p38 、 Akt ) were designed by Primer Premier 5.0 software (Applied Biosystems) with the cDNA sequences obtained from National Center of Biotechnology Information (NCBI) [GenBank: NM_012912.2, NM_053829.1, NM_031020.2, BF563829.1, respectively]. All of these primers were synthesized by Beijing Genome Institute (BGI-Shenzhen, China).…”