Scutellarin alleviates type 2 diabetes (HFD/low dose STZ)- induced cardiac injury through modulation of oxidative stress, inflammation, apoptosis and fibrosis in mice

Background: Diabetes is a serious global health concern which severely affected public health as well as socio-economic growth worldwide. Scutellarin (SCU), a bioactive flavonol is known for its efficacious action against a range of ailments including cardiovascular problems. The present study conducted to find out possible protective effect and its associated mechanisms of SCU on experimental type 2 diabetes-induced cardiac injury. Methods: : Type 2 diabetes was induced by treating animals with high fat diet for 4 weeks and a single intraperitoneal dose (35 mg/kg body weight) of streptozotocin and diabetic animals received SCU (10 or 20 mg/kg/day) for 6 weeks. Results: : SCU attenuated type 2 diabetes-induced hyperglycemia, body weight loss, hyperlipidemia, cardiac functional damage with histo-pathological alterations and fibrosis. SCU treatment to type 2 diabetic mice exacerbated oxidative stress, inflammatory status and apoptosis in heart. Furthermore, the underlying mechanisms for such mitigation of oxidative stress, inflammation and apoptosis in heart involved modulation of Nrf2/Keap1 pathway, TLR4/MyD88/NF-κB mediated inflammatory pathway and intrinsic (mitochondrial) apoptosis pathway, respectively. Conclusions: : The current findings suggest that SCU is effective in protecting type 2 diabetes-induced cardiac injury by attenuating oxidative stress and inflammatory responses and apoptosis and it is also worth considering the efficacious potential of SCU to treat diabetic cardiomyopathy patients.