Investigation of the effective components inhibited macrophage foam cell formation in Ophiopogonis Radix

Ophiopogonis Radix, the commonly used traditional Chinese medicine in clinic for treating cardiovascular diseases, is returned to the stomach, lung and heart meridian. It is reported to nourish yin, moisten lung and is used to treat heart yin deficiency syndromes and asthenia of heart and lung, which indicated that Ophiopogonis Radix may have a protective effect on heart disorders. Atherosclerosisis is an important process in the development of cardiovascular diseases and abnormal lipid deposition induced macrophage foam cells is its crucial foundation. Our previous study showed the extract of Ophiopogonis Radix (EOR) ameliorates atherosclerosis in vitro. However, it may protect against cardiovascular diseases through inhibiting macrophage foam cell formation and its potential effective components and mechanisms are still unclear.Our study aimed to investigate the effect of Ophiopogonis Radix on macrophage foam cell formation and its potential active constituents and mechanisms.Ox-LDL induced macrophage cells were employed to evaluate the effect of Ophiopogonis Radix on macrophage foam cell formation. Then the potential active constituents inhibited formation of macrophage foam cells were screened by biospecific cell extraction and its underlying mechanisms were also explored by Western blot.The extract of Ophiopogonis Radix was found to significantly inhibit macrophage foam cell formation, evidenced by the decrease of TG and TC and Oil Red O staining analysis in macrophage cells, which indicated that EOR reduced the formation of macrophage foam cells. At the same time, EOR was showed to increase antioxidant capacity in macrophage cells. After treatment with EOR, two potential active components interacted with macrophage foam cells specifically were identified to inhibit macrophage foam cell formation including methylophiopogonanone A and methylophiopogonanone B. Methylophiopogonanone A was then proved to decrease the expression of CD36, Lox-1 and SREBP2, increase the expression of ABCA1 obviously, while the expression of ABCG1 and SREBP1 had no changes.In our study, Ophiopogonis Radix was found to protect against atherosclerosis through suppressing ox-LDL induced macrophage foam cell formation and two potential compounds were identified by biospecific cell extraction including methylophiopogonanone A and methylophiopogonanone B. Moreover, methylophiopogonanone A was proved to inhibit foam cells through reducing uptake, synthesis and increasing efflux, which may provide guidance and reference for application of Ophiopogonis Radix and investigation of the effective components of TCMs.