Protective Activities of Dendrobium huoshanense C. Z. Tang et S. J. Cheng Polysaccharide against High-Cholesterol Diet-Induced Atherosclerosis in Zebrafish

Cardiovascular disease is the highest cause of death, and atherosclerosis (AS) is the primary pathogenesis of many cardiovascular diseases. In this study, we aim to investigate the possible pharmaceutical effects of Dendrobium huoshanense C. Z. Tang et S. J. Cheng polysaccharide (DHP) in AS. We fed zebrafish with high-cholesterol diet (HCD) to establish a zebrafish AS model and treated with DHP and observed plaque formation and neutrophil counts under a fluorescence microscope. Next, a parallel flow chamber was utilized to establish low shear stress- (LSS-) induced endothelial cell (EC) dysfunction model. We observed that DHP significantly improved HCD-induced lipid deposition, oxidative stress, and inflammatory response, mainly showing that DHP significantly increased superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity, decreased plaque formation, and decreased neutrophil recruitment and the levels of total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), malondialdehyde (MDA), and reactive oxygen species (ROS). Furthermore, DHP significantly improved LSS-induced oxidative stress and EC dysfunction. Our results indicated that DHP can exert treatment effects on AS, which may attribute to its hypolipidemic, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory activities and improving LSS-induced EC dysfunction. DHP has promising potential for further development as a functional natural medicine source targeted at AS prevention.