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Early Intervention of Tongxinluo (通心络) on Right Ventricular Function Assessed by Echocardiography in Rats with Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension Induced by Monocrotaline

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Abstract

Objective

To investigate the effect of early intervention of Tongxinluo (通心络, TXL) on right ventricular function (RVF) of rats with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) induced by monocrotaline (MCT).

Methods

A total of 30 adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were assigned to 5 groups with complete random experiment design: Sham group (Sham), MCT group, TXL group, sildenafil (SIL) group and combination group (TXL+SIL), 6 rats in each group. Rats were injected with 50 mg/kg MCT solution for inducing PAH model except for those in the sham group. From the day of modeling, rats of TXL, SIL and TXL+SIL groups were given TXL (1.2 g/kg), SIL (10 mg/kg) and combination solution (TXL:1.2 g/kg, SIL: 10 mg/kg) respectively, and rats in Sham and MCT groups were given normal saline (5 mL/kg). The samples were collected and tested after 21 consecutive days of intragastric administration. Echocardiography was used to measure the related indices of RVF, including pulmonary arterial flow spectrum, pulmonary artery diameter (PAD), right ventricular wall thickness (RVWT), right ventricular diameter (RVD), tricuspidannular plane systolic excursion (TAPSE), right atrium transverse diameter (RAT), and inferior vena cava diameter (IVCD). Elastic Verhoeff-Van Gieson staining was adopted to measure the percentage of wall thickness (WT%) of pulmonary arteriols. Hematoxylin-eosin staining was used to measure the cross-sectional area (CSA) of right ventricular cardiomyocytes.

Results

MCT-induced PAH rat model was successfully established. In MCT group the wall of pulmonary arterioles exhibited a prominent-increase thickness, PAD, RVWT, RVD, RAT, IVCD, WT%, right ventricular hypertrophy index (RVHI) as well as CSA of RV cardiomyocyte significantly increased (all P<0.01), and TAPSE markedly decreased (P<0.01). At the same time, TXL prominently improved all of the above indices (all P<0.01). In comparison with SIL, TXL significantly reduced RVD (P<0.05) and decreased CAS of RV cardiomyocytes (P<0.01), but TAPSE in SIL group was much larger than in TXL group (P<0.01). Moreover, TAPSE in TXL+SIL group was larger than that in TXL group (P<0.01), while the two groups performed equally well in terms of the other indices.

Conclusion

Early intervention of TXL could inhibit pulmonary arterioles remodeling, and improve RVF by attenuating right ventricular hypertrophy, and TXL has a stronger effect on inhibiting right ventricular remodeling than SIL.

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Acknowledgement

All authors thank Dr. Gao Y and Professor Ren JP for their kind assistance and valuable suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nanlou Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture, Chinese People’s Liberation Army General Hospital, Beijing, 100853, China

    Lu Gao

  2. Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chinese People’s Liberation Army General Hospital, Beijing, 100853, China

    Lu Gao, Shao-dan Li, Yin Zhang, Yi Liu & Ming-hui Yang

Authors
  1. Lu Gao
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  2. Shao-dan Li
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  3. Yin Zhang
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  4. Yi Liu
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  5. Ming-hui Yang
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Contributions

Yang MH contributed to the scientific content and study design. Gao L has contributed to the experiment operation, statistical analysis and manuscript preparation. Li SD, Zhang Y, and Liu Y have contributed to study design, technical support and material support.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ming-hui Yang.

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All the authors report no conflict of interest. None of the contents of this manuscript has been published previously. All the authors have read and approved the final version of the manuscript prior to submission.

Additional information

Supported by National Key Basic Research Special Foundation of China (No. 2012CB518600)

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Gao, L., Li, Sd., Zhang, Y. et al. Early Intervention of Tongxinluo (通心络) on Right Ventricular Function Assessed by Echocardiography in Rats with Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension Induced by Monocrotaline. Chin. J. Integr. Med. 26, 913–920 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11655-020-3229-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11655-020-3229-x

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