Naringin protects against inflammation and apoptosis induced by intestinal ischemia–reperfusion injury through deactivation of cGAS‐STING signaling pathway

Effective amelioration of ischemia/reperfusion (I/R)-induced intestinal injury and revealing its mechanisms remain the challenges in both preclinic and clinic. Potential mechanisms of naringin in ameliorating I/R-induced intestinal injury remain unknown. Based on pre-experiments, I/R-injured rat intestine in vivo and hypoxia-reoxygenation (H/R)-injured IEC-6 cells in vitro were used to verify that naringin-alleviated I/R-induced intestinal injury was mediated via deactivating cGAS-STING signaling pathway. Naringin improved intestinal damage using hematoxylin and eosin staining and decreased alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase contents in plasma. Naringin decreased inflammation characterized by reducing IL-6, IL-1β, TNF-α, and IFN-β contents in both plasma and IEC-6 cells. Naringin mitigated oxidative stress via recovering superoxide dismutase, glutathione, and malondialdehyde levels in the I/R-injured intestine. Naringin reduced the expression of apoptotic proteins, including Bax, caspase-3, and Bcl-2, and reduced terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP-biotin nick-end labeling-positive cells both in vivo and in vitro, and decreased Hoechst 33342 signals in vitro. cGAS, STING, p-TBK1, p-IRF3, and NF-κB expressions were up-regulated both in vivo and in vitro respectively and the up-regulated indexes were reversed by naringin. Transfection of cGAS-siRNA and cGAS-cDNA significantly down-regulated and up-regulated cGAS-STING signaling-related protein expressions, respectively, and partially weakened naringin-induced amelioration on these indexes, suggesting that deactivation of cGAS-STING signaling is the crucial target for naringin-induced amelioration on I/R-injured intestine.