Experimental study of the antiatherogenesis effect of Chinese medicine angelica and its mechanisms.

This experiment was designed to study the antiatherogenesis action of angelica injection and its mechanisms on classic atherosclerotic rabbit model. Eighteen Japanese rabbits were divided randomly into three groups: a control group, a high-lipid group and an angelica group; and common forage, high lipid forage and high lipid adding angelica injection were given to each group accordingly. At the end of the tenth week, blood samples were obtained through carotid artery intubation for evidence of serum lipids and hemorheology. Thoracic aorta were prepared for measurement of the plaque area. The results showed that (1) the plaque area in the high-lipid group was larger than in the angelica group: (35.58+/-7.25% vs 63.31+/-7.46%); (2) serum lipids level in the high-lipid group and angelica group were significantly higher than those in the control group (p < 0.01). Apart from triglyceride (TG), there was no difference of total cholesterol (Tch), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-ch), and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-ch) between the high-lipid group and the angelica group; (3) angelica increased whole blood viscosity, hematocrit and fibrinogen under hyperlipidemic conditions. We concluded that angelica can inhibit rabbit aorta atherogenesis through decreasing the serum triglyceride concentration and its effects on hemorheology.

Angelica protects the human vascular endothelial cell from the effects of oxidized low-density lipoprotein in vitro.

Oxidative modification of low-density lipoproteins (LDL) is important in the etiology and pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. Alterations of function and structure of vascular endothelial cells (ECs) mark the early stages of the development of atherogenesis. Human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) were used to investigate the role of angelica in human vascular ECs damage. HUVECs incubated with 0.1 mg/ml of ox-LDL for 24 hours exhibited more pronounced morphological change, such as: cell shrinkage, disappearance of microvilli on EC surface, cellular membrane rupture, intercellular space enlargement, and significantly increased intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) expression. The effects of ox-LDL on morphology and ICAM-1 can be reversed by Angelica. The effect of Angelica on Cu2+-catalyzed LDL oxidation was also studied and it was demonstrated that Angelica produced a concentration dependent inhibition of LDL oxidation as assessed by thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances (TBARS). Our findings indicate that Angelica has protective effect against ox-LDL induced damage on cultured HUVECs, an antioxidant effect on LDLs, and an inhibiting effect on ox-LDL induced ICAM-1 expression of endothelial cells. These findings further provided experiment proofs for the antiatherogenesis effect of Angelica.