Tea Saponin from Camellia oleifera Seed Meal Alleviates Hypertension-Induced Myocardial Fibrosis: Isolation, Purification, and Mechanisms

With the rapid development of the Camellia oleifera industry, tea saponin (TS), a bioactive component in C. oleifera seed meal, has garnered increasing attention in production and application research. This study innovatively employed ultrasound-assisted ethanol extraction combined with AB-8 macroporous resin purification (10% ethanol, 20 g/L TS, 8 BV loading volume, 8 h adsorption time) to effectively prepare high-purity (95.43 ± 0.04%) TS (HP-TS) with a relatively high yield (40.75 ± 0.52%) from C. oleifera seed meal. Furthermore, HP-TS alleviated hypertension-induced myocardial fibrosis in rats by inhibiting the protein expression of ACE, TGF-β1, Smad3, COL I, p65, p50, and pro-inflammatory factors in the ACE-AT1R/TGF/NF-κB pathways (p < 0.05). This study provides scientific evidence for the high-value utilization of tea seed meal and opens up possibilities for TS as an active ingredient in health foods and pharmaceuticals targeting antimyocardial fibrosis.