Gastrodin Reduces Blood Pressure by Intervening with RAAS and PPARγ in SHRs

Abstract EN

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±8.9 versus 169.8±6.4, P<0.01).

Among SHRs receiving gastrodin treatment, angiotensin II (Ang II) and aldosterone (ALD) in serum were significantly decreased (2022.1±53.0 versus 1528.7±93.9, 213.33±35.17 versus 179.65±20.31, and P<0.01, P<0.05, resp.) and dramatically downregulated expression of angiotensin type 1 receptor (AT1R) (4.9±0.9 versus 2.6±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±0.07 versus 0.82±0.10, P<0.01) and protein synthesis (0.40±0.10 versus 0.34±0.10, P<0.01) of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (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 PPARγ effectively, which indicates its antihypertensive mechanism.