Anti-atherosclerotic effect of a Chinese medicine, Huanglian Jiedu Decoction, mediated by regulatory T cells / 中国实验动物学报

ABSTRACT

Objective To study the effect of a Chinese medicine, Huanglian Jiedu Decoction ( HLJDD) , on ath-erosclerotic plaque, inflammatory factors and regulatory T cells in ApoE-/- mice. Methods High fat diet was given to ApoE-/- mice to establish an atherosclerosis model. 40 male ApoE-/- mice were randomly divided into five groupsmodel group, simvastatin group, low, moderate and high dose HLJDD groups (n =8). HLJDD was intragastrically administered in a dose of 3. 5, 7. 0, or 14. 0 g/( kg?bw) once dailg for 16 weeks. The dose of simvastatin was 5. 0 g/( kg?bw). An-other 8 male C57BL/6J mice were taken as control group. At the end of the 29-week experiment, all of the mice were sacri-ficed. The aortic plaques, level of blood lipids, inflammatory factors, Tregs number and the level of Foxp3 mRNA were de-tected and analyzed by ELISA, flow cytometry and RT-PCR, respectively. Results Compared with the control group, the aortic plaques were much larger in the model group, and the levels of TC, TG, LDL-C, IL-6, hs-CRP, and TNF-α were significantly higher than those in the control group (P<0. 01 for all). Meanwhile, the levels of HDL-C, IL-10, TGF-βand Foxp3 mRNA were much lower than those in the control group ( P<0. 01 for all) , and the Tregs numbers were less than that in the control group (P<0. 01). HLJDD regulated the blood lipids in ApoE-/ - mice and decreased the levels of IL-6, hs-CRP, andTNF-α, however increased the levels of IL-10, TGF-β and Foxp3 mRNA. At the same time, it in-creased Tregs number in the ApoE-/ - mice. Compared with the model group, the difference was statistically significancet (P<0. 01). Conclusions HLJDD can significantly alleviate the aortic plaque damages in ApoE-/ - mice. It may be re-lated to the up-regulation of Tregs, which can lead to decrease the expression of serum pro-inflammatory factors such like IL-10, hs-CRP and TNF-α.