The protective effect of herbal polysaccharides on ischemia-reperfusion injury

Ischemia-reperfusion (IR) injury is one of the common ischemic diseases in organs such as brain, heart, kidney, liver, and intestine, which often leads to cell apoptosis and organ failure. The study of herbal polysaccharides for IR injury has a long time, and has laid a solid foundation for the next research work. The purpose of this review is to objectively appraise the current experimental research situation of treating IR injury in organs by polysaccharides from traditional Chinese medicines. Twenty-four kinds of polysaccharides that show effective treatment in organ ischemia were mentioned on the review. The results indicate that herbal polysaccharides provide a good prospect in prevention and treatment of IR injury, and these kinds of polysaccharides have various mechanisms of action, including (i) modifying the function of neurosystem, (ii) reducing the infarct volume, malondiadehyde (MDA) content, and levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, (iii) elevating the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and myeloperoxidase (MPO) and increasing the levels of anti-inflammatory cytokine. As the polysaccharides from traditional Chinese medicines are a promising solution for IR injury, it is necessary to review the reported researches so as to point out the direction of application and exploitation in the future.