Gastrodin Reduces Blood Pressure by Intervening with RAAS and PPARγin SHRs

Abstract

Gastrodin is a bioactive compound extracted from traditional Chinese medicine,Gastrodia elata  Bl. It has a definite effect on reducing blood pressure in hypertensive patients. However, the mechanisms of gastrodin in lowering blood pressure still remain unclear. In this study, 4 weeks of administration of gastrodin (100 mg/kg/d intraperitoneally injected) decreased the systolic blood pressure (SBP) in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs) (190.2±8.9versus169.8±6.4,P<0.01). Among SHRs receiving gastrodin treatment, angiotensin II (Ang II) and aldosterone (ALD) in serum were significantly decreased (2022.1±53.0versus1528.7±93.9,213.33±35.17versus179.65±20.31, andP<0.01,P<0.05, resp.) and dramatically downregulated expression of angiotensin type 1 receptor (AT1R) (4.9±0.9versus2.6±0.9,P<0.05) in myocardium in both mRNA and protein levels compared with their corresponding groups without gastrodin treatment. Additionally, gastrodin increased the mRNA expression (0.18±0.07versus0.82±0.10,P<0.01) and protein synthesis (0.40±0.10versus0.34±0.10,P<0.01) of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptorγ(PPARγ) in myocardium tissues. Overall, our data demonstrated that gastrodin was able to decrease the SBP in SHR. Furthermore, this study showed that gastrodin intervened with the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) and PPARγeffectively, which indicates its antihypertensive mechanism.