Protective Effect of Soy Isoflavone Genistein on Ischemia-Reperfusion in the Rat Small Intestine

Abstract

Ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury of the intestine is an important factor associated with high rates of morbidity and mortality. Intestinal I/R is a common clinical problem in the settings of severe burns, circulatory shock and strangulation ileus. Intestinal I/R damages remote organs and promotes multi-organ failure. It has been shown that enteral feeding before ischemic insults is beneficial for reducing organ injury and improving survival after intestinal I/R. In that study, the authors used a standard complex enteral diet and they suggested that it is important to find new nutrient formulas. Since reactive oxygen species are responsible for intestinal I/R injury, we focused on a dietary polyphenol, the soy isoflavone genistein. Genistein has a wide spectrum of biochemical and pharmacological activities. However, the possibility of a protective effect of genistein as enteral nutrition on I/R injury has not been investigated. We therefore investigated the protective effect of genistein on oxidative injury using intestinal I/R model rats. We found that genistein, which has combined antioxidant activity from radical scavenging, xanthine oxidase inhibition and chain-breaking effects, exhibits a protective effect on intestinal I/R injury. The results suggest that genistein, a soy isoflavone, has the possibility as a new nutrient formula of enteral feeding.

Neuroprotective effect of calycosin on cerebral ischemia and reperfusion injury in rats

“…Several bioactive compounds were discovered in Radix Astragali such as isoflavonoids, astragalosides and polysaccharides (Sun et al, 2010). Recent findings suggest that isoflavonoids can attenuated ischemic and reperfusion injury in animal model (Sato et al, 2011;Watanabe et al, 2007). Calycosin is the major isoflavonoids of Radix Astragali.…”

Dietary soy isoflavone attenuated growth performance and intestinal barrier functions in weaned piglets challenged with lipopolysaccharide

“…The main components of soy isoflavones, including genistein, daidzein, glycitein and biochanin A [4,5], have been demonstrated to possess various biological properties and exert antiestrogenic [6], anticarcinogenic [7,8], antioxidant [9], anti-inflammatory [10,11] as well as immune-modulatory functions [12]. Increasing evidences have suggested that soy isoflavones may have beneficial effects in the prevention and treatment of inflammatory disorders [5,13] and diarrheal diseases [14,15].…”

Soy isoflavones have antimutagenic activity on DNA damage induced by the antileishmanial Glucantime (meglumine antimoniate)

“…Studies have reported that flavonoids may have genotoxic properties (Fox et al, 2012;Lehmann et al, 2005) and may act as pro-oxidants (Michels et al, 2005;van Zanden et al, 2003), or they may have significant protective effects against oxidative damage (Hagen et al, 2012;Sato et al, 2011;Widyarini et al, 2012;Yen & Lai, 2003).…”