Experimental Study of TFGs on Cardiac Fibroblast Transdifferentiation and Its Mechanism

To Investigate the intervention of Trigonella foenum greacum.L Saponin(TFGs) on urotensin II-induced cultured rat cardiac fibroblasts(CFs) transdifferentiation and its related molecular mechanisms. Cultured CFs were randomly divided into control group, UII stimulation and TFGs intervention group. Control group without any stimulation train; U II stimulate groups with 12-48 hours, induce of UII at 10^-8 mol/L; TFGs intervention group with UII as a stimulus were added to a final concentration of 0, 25, 50, 100 and 200 mg.L^-1 of TFGs. The expression of α-SMA was observed by immunofluorescent and immunohistochemistry. The expression of connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) was assessed with RT-PCR and Western blotting. The expression of α-SMA increased gradually with 12-48 hours, induce of U II at 10^-8 mol/L. This effect of U II induced CFs transdifferentiation could be inhibited by TFGs with a dose and time-dependent manner. Compared with those in control group, the expression of CTGF in UII stimulate groups significantly (P<;0.01) increased. But Upregulation of UII-induced CTGF expression can be inhibited by TFGs (P<;0.01). The transdifferentiation of cardiac interstitial fibroblasts into α-SMA⁺ myofibroblasts may be induced by U II in vitro. UII-induced transdifferentiation may be partially related to the increased CTGF expression. TFGs can effectively inhibit transdifferentiation of CFs and reduce UII-induced overexpression of CTGF. These results further clarify the role of UII in myocardial fibrosis, and also provides an experimental basis of TFGs for the clinical prevention of myocardial fibrosis.