ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Chinese medicine xinmailong (XML) injection is a kind of new nucleoside compound which comes from American giant cockroach of insects. A lot of studies show that XML has obvious effect on cardiovascular activity which can treat acute or chronic congestive heart failure and shock and improve microcirculation.OBJECTIVE: To observe the effect of XML on anti-aging of mice.DESIGN: Controlled observational study.SETTING: Department of Physiology and Pathology, Basic Medical College of Dali College.MATERIALS: The experiment was carried out at the Functional Laboratory of Basic Medical College between July 2002 and September 2004. A total of 40 ICR mice of both sexes were provided by Kunming Medical College,Yunnan Naturally Occurring Drugs Key Laboratory. XML injection was provided by Yunnan Tengchong Pharmacy Factory [batch number: 94 (ZL) 03].METHODS: A total of 40 ICR mice were randomly divided into 4 groups:young control group, aging control group, XML group at high dosage and XML group at low dosage with 10 in each group. All mice were fed routinely with standard feed. Mice in young control group aged 3 months and weighed (20±2) g; meanwhile, mice in other groups aged 20 months and weighed (40±3) g. From the 20th month, mice in XML groups were intraperitoneally injected with 6 mg/kg and 8 mg/kg, respectively, for 30 days with once every day. Mice in young and aging control groups were intraperitoneally injected with the same volume of saline. On the 31st day,heads of mice were cut off to obtain blood which was maintained at hepalean anti-coagulated tube. Brains and livers were obtained rapidly for homogenate with 10% saline. Activities of catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) in serum, content of malondialdehyde (MDA) in brain tissue and content of lipofuscin in cerebral and hepatic tissue were measured according to introduction of kits.MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: ① Activities of CAT, SOD and GSHPx in serum; ② content of MDA in brain tissue and contents of lipofuscin in cerebral and hepatic tissues.RFSULTS: A total of 40 animals were involved in the final analysis without any loss. ① Activities of CAT, SOD and GSH-Px in serum of mice were lower in aging control group than those in young control group; however,activities of CAT, SOD and GSH-Px in serum of mice were increased in the two XML dosage groups, and there was significant difference from those in aging control group (P ＜ 0.05 or P ＜ 0.01). ② Content of MDA in brain tissue and contents of lipofuscin in cerebral and hepatic tissues of mice in aging control group were higher than those of mice in young control group, but those in the two dosage groups were decreased, which was significant difference from those of mice in aging control group (P ＜ 0.01). However, there was no significant difference between the two dosage groups.CONCLUSION: XML has an effect on anti-aging through improving metabolism of free radicals.