Progress of experimental research on cardiotoxicity of Chansu / 中国药理学与毒理学杂志

ABSTRACT

AS a result of a better understanding,people pay increasing attention to the adverse effect of traditional Chinese medicine. Chansu as a rare Chinese traditional medicine has been widely used in clinical treatment and known to have cardiotoxicity. The mechanism and relationships with blood drug concentrations need to be elucidated urgently. Bufadienolides,whose chemical structure is similar to that of digoxigenin,are the major component of Chansu and also belong to cardiac glycosides. They show both excitation and inhibition effects on the heart. Myocardial cells can not only be excited to trigger tachycardia and rapid arrhythmias at a low dose,but inhibited to induce heart block and slow arrhythmias at a high dose. As the key regulator of intracellular energy and calcium ion concentration , Na+/K+ATPase can be inhibited by bufadienolides through a combination of alpha subunits of the enzyme , resulting in calcium overload and energy disorders in myocardial cells. This might be the main mechanism of cardiotoxicity. In this paper,the progress in experimental research of substances of cardiotoxicity,animal tests,enzyme and ion channel,lipid metabolism and ion homeostasis,correlations between pharma?cokinetics and cardiotoxicity are reviewed.