Effects of volatile oil from artemisia dracunculus for treatment of mice with myocardial injury caused by viral myocarditis / 中国中西医结合急救杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the effects of volatile oil from artemisia dracunculus on myocardial injury caused by viral myocarditis in mice and explore its possible mechanism.Methods Totally 160 adult male BALB/c mice were randomly divided into normal control group (10) and viral myocarditis group (150).Viral myocarditis mice models were reproduced by intraperitoneal inoculation with a solution of coxsackievirus B3 (CVB3),a viral strain with affinity to myocardium,and then randomly divided into model,astragalus group,and low-,medium-,and high-dose volatile oil from artemisia dracunculus groups.After 1 hour of viral infection,normal control group and model group mice were given normal saline by intragastric administration,astragalus group mice were injected with astragalus 0.1 mL in each mouse by intraperitoneal injection,and the mice in other three groups were given low,medium and high dose (2％,5％,10％) 0.3 mL volatile oil from artemisia dracunculus in each mouse by intragastric administration,respectively,once a day for one week consecutively.The mortality,heart/body weight ratio,the activity of natural killer cells (NK cell),virus titer in myocardial homogenate,serum cardiac troponin Ⅰ (cTnI) level and myocardial pathological changes were observed.Results ① Mortalitythe mortality of model group was higher than that of the normal control group,astragalus group,low and medium dose volatile oil from artemisia dracunculus groups (60.0％ vs.0％,23.3％,20.0％,28.7％),and the difference in the mortality being of no statistical significance between model group and that of high-dose volatile oil from artemisia dracunculus group (60.0％ vs.47.6％,P ＞ 0.05);the mortality of astragalus group was obviously lower than that of high-dose volatile oil from artemisia dracunculus group (P ＜ 0.01),and the differences in comparisons between the mortalities of astragalus intervention group,and medium-and low-dose volatile oil groups were not statistically significant (all P ＞ 0.05),and the comparison of mortality between low-and medium-dose volatile oil groups were also not statistically significant (P ＞ 0.05).② Immunization parameterson the 8th day after modeling,the activity of NK cells in the model group was significantly lower than that in the normal control group [(15.91 ± 3.87)％ vs.(38.50 ± 2.32)％],the activities of NK cells in astragalus group,medium-and low-dose volatile oil from artemisia dracunculus groups were significantly higher than that in model group [(19.38 ± 3.27)％,(18.54 ± 3.09)％,(18.36 ± 2.64)％ vs.(15.91 ± 3.87)％,all P ＜ 0.05].None of virus was detected in the myocardial homogenate in the normal control group,and the virus titers in astragalus group,low and medium dose volatile oil from artemisia dracunculus groups were significantly lower than the titer of the model group (10-9/mL1.96 ± 0.44,1.95 ± 0.46,1.95 ± 0.48 vs.2.41 ± 0.51,all P ＜0.01).③ Myocardial injury parametersthe level of cTnI in the normal control group was less than 0.1 μg/L,obviously lower than that in the model group [(15.84 ± 3.89) μg/L],as well as the ratio of heart/body weight in model group was also significantly higher than that in normal control group (× 10-48.3 ± 1.3 vs.4.6 ± 0.1),and the cTnI and the ratio of heart/body weight of astragalus intervention group,low and medium dose volatile oil from artemisia dracunculus groups were markedly lower than those of model group [cTnI (mg/L)10.03 ± 2.35,10.81 ± 2.56,11.10 ± 1.89 vs.15.84 ± 3.89,ratio of heart/body weight (× 10-4)7.2 ± 0.8,7.3 ± 1.0,7.3 ± 0.6 vs.8.3 ± 1.3].In the normal control group,there were no inflammatory cell infiltration and necrosis in myocardial tissue,the scores of myocardial pathological changes were 0.In the model group,the scores of inflammatory cell infiltration (3.25 ± 0.45) and of necrosis (2.91 ± 0.51) were markedly higher than those in the normal control group.And the above scores in astragalus group,low and medium dose volatile oil from artemisia dracunculus groups were significantly lower than those of the model group (infiltration score2.92 ± 0.39,2.95 ± 0.35,2.95 ± 0.37 vs.3.25 ± 0.45,necrosis score2.46 ± 0.50,2.50 ± 0.51,2.54 ± 0.50 vs.2.91 ± 0.51,all P ＜0.05).Conclusions Volatile oil from artemisia dracunculus can protect cardiomyocytes by removing the virus and regulating the immune function in the body.But the protective effects of volatile oil from artemisia dracunculus is related to the dosage,and the effects of low and medium dose are better.