Dayuanyin (DYY) has been shown to reduce
lung inflammation in both coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and
lung injury. This experiment was designed to investigate the
efficacy and mechanism of action of DYY against hypoxic
pulmonary hypertension (HPH) and to evaluate the effect of DYY on the
protection of
lung function.
Animal welfare and experimental
procedures are approved and in accordance with the
provision of the
Animal Ethics Committee of the Institute of
Materia Medica,
Chinese Academy of Medical
Science.
Male C57/BL6J
mice were randomly divided into 4 groups
control group, model group, DYY group (800 mg·kg-1), and positive control
sildenafil group (100 mg·kg-1). The
animals were given control
solvents or
drugs by gavage three days in advance. On day 4, the
animals in the model group, DYY group and
sildenafil group were kept in a hypoxic chamber containing 10% ± 0.5%
oxygen, and the
animals in the
control group were kept in a normal
environment, and the control
solvent or
drugs continued to be given continuously for 14 days. The right ventricular
systolic pressure,
right ventricular hypertrophy index, organ indices and other
metrics were measured in the experimental endpoints. Meantime, the expression levels of the inflammatory factors in
mice lung tissues were measured. The potential
therapeutic targets of DYY on
pulmonary hypertension were predicted using
network pharmacology, the expression of
nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) signaling pathway-related
proteins were measured by
Western blot assay. It was found that DYY significantly reduced the right ventricular
systolic pressure, attenuated
lung injury and decreased the expression of inflammatory factors in
mice. It can also inhibit
hypoxia-induced activation of NF-κB signaling pathway. DYY has a protective effect on
lung function, as demonstrated by DYY has good
efficacy in HPH, and preventive
administration can slow down the
disease progression, and its mechanism may be related to inhibit the activation of NF-κB and
signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) by DYY.