The Signaling Pathways Involved in the Antiatherosclerotic Effects Produced by Chinese Herbal Medicines

Abstract

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are considered to be the predominant cause of death in the world. Chinese herb medicines (CHMs) have been widely used for the treatment of CVDs in Asian countries for thousands of years. One reason of high efficacy of CHMs in treating CVDs is attributed to their inhibition in atherosclerosis (AS) development, a critical contributor to CVDs occurrence. Cumulative studies have demonstrated that CHMs alleviate atherogenesis via mediating pathophysiologic events involved in AS. However, there is deficiency in the summaries regarding antiatherogenic signal pathways regulated by CHMs. In this review, we focus on the signal cascades by which herb medicines and relevant extractives, derivatives, and patents improve proatherogenic processes including endothelium dysfunction, lipid accumulation, and inflammation. We mainly elaborate the CHMs-mediated signaling pathways in endothelial cells, macrophages, and vascular smooth muscle cells of each pathogenic event. Moreover, we briefly describe the other AS-related factors such as thrombosis, autophagy, immune response, and noncoding RNAs and effects of CHMs on them in the way of cascade regulation, which is helpful to further illustrate the molecular mechanisms of AS initiation and progression and discover newly effective agents for AS management.

Shexiang Baoxin Pill Alleviates the Atherosclerotic Lesions in Mice via Improving Inflammation Response and Inhibiting Lipid Accumulation in the Arterial Wall

“…Among the inflammation-related signal molecules, NF- κ B is a pivotal upper stream regulator responsible for mediating the expression of multiple proinflammatory proteins including interleukins and adhesion molecules which participate in the atherosclerosis development [24, 38]. Furthermore, MAPKs including JNK, p38, and ERK1/2 have been reported to play roles in the regulation of inflammation expansion by triggering the transcription of relevant genes [39, 40]. Mfn2 is reported to possess anti-inflammatory properties and is demonstrated to suppress the signal transductions involving NF- κ B and MAPK pathways [37, 41, 42].…”

Pro-angiogenic Role of Danqi Pill Through Activating Fatty Acids Oxidation Pathway Against Coronary Artery Disease

“…Controlling neovascularization is pivotal to treating CAD. Traditional Chinese medicines have been used to treat cardiovascular diseases for hundreds of years (Wong, 2014; Boden et al, 2015; Saleh et al, 2015; Al et al, 2016; Alali et al, 2016; Fardoun et al, 2017; Lu et al, 2018). Some of them have been shown to have angiogenic effects (Rosinberg et al, 2004).…”