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Puerarin: a novel antagonist to inward rectifier potassium channel (I K1)

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Abstract

Puerarin, isolated from the root of pueraria, had been widely used to prevent and treat arrhythmia. We show that puerarin effectively prevents and reverses aconitine-induced arrhythmias in perfused heart in vitro and in rats in vivo. To study the mechanisms of antiarrhythmic action of puerarin, we investigated the electrophysiological actions of puerarin using whole-cell clamp in isolated rodent ventricular myocytes and two electrode voltage-clamp (TEV) in I K1-expressing Xenopus oocytes. Puerarin had no prominent effect on action potentials of ventricular myocytes from guinea pig. However, puerarin (1.2 mM) significantly inhibited the I K1 current in rat ventricular cells. Consistently, puerarin blocked I K1 expressed in Xenopus oocytes in a dose-dependent manner. Puerarin competed with barium, an open-channel blocker of I K1, to inhibit I K1 currents. Thus, our data demonstrated that puerarin is a novel open-channel blocker of I K1, which may underlie the antiarrhythmic action of puerarin.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Prof. Jia JiDong for helpful discussions and guidance in electrophysiological techniques.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Cardiology, Shaanxi Provincial Corps Hospital of Chinese People’s Armed Police Forces, 88th East South Er-Huan Road, Xi’an, 710054, People’s Republic of China

    Hua Zhang, XingCang Yang, ShuHong Shun, Yang Wu & QianHui Zeng

  2. First Department of Surgery, Shaanxi Provincial Corps Hospital of Chinese People’s Armed Police Forces, Xi’an, 710054, People’s Republic of China

    Li Zhang

  3. Institute of Hepatology Surgery, General Hospital of Chinese People’s Armed Police Forces, Beijing, 100039, People’s Republic of China

    Qing Zhang

  4. Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Academy of Military Medical Sciences, Beijing, 100039, People’s Republic of China

    JiYun Yu

  5. Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, First Affiliated Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University Medical School, 277 Yanta West Road, Xi’an, Shaanxi province, 710061, People’s Republic of China

    TingZhong Wang

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  1. Hua Zhang
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  2. Li Zhang
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  3. Qing Zhang
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  4. XingCang Yang
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  6. ShuHong Shun
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  7. Yang Wu
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  8. QianHui Zeng
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  9. TingZhong Wang
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Hua Zhang or TingZhong Wang.

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Hua Zhang, Li Zhang and Qing Zhang have contributed equally to this study.

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Zhang, H., Zhang, L., Zhang, Q. et al. Puerarin: a novel antagonist to inward rectifier potassium channel (I K1). Mol Cell Biochem 352, 117–123 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11010-011-0746-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11010-011-0746-0

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