Mo Hla Myat Mo, Lee Jong Han
Department of Aquatic Life Medicine, Hanseo University, Seosan 31962, Republic of Korea.
Muscles. 2025 Aug 19;4(3):35. doi: 10.3390/muscles4030035.
Baicalin is a natural flavonoid that has anti-apoptotic and anti-inflammatory effects. It shows some beneficial effects on muscle atrophy. However, its effects on age-related muscle atrophy are poorly understood. In this paper, we investigated whether baicalin exerts protective effect against skeletal muscle atrophy and its underlying mechanisms in aged mice using the grip strength test, histological analysis, and Western blots. Baicalin increased total muscle mass and strength in aged mice. Consistently, the cross-sectional area of quadriceps (QD) muscle significantly increased in both baicalin-administrated groups. Moreover, baicalin induced a shift in muscle fiber size distribution toward large fibers in both groups of mice. Expression levels of muscle atrophic factors, such as myostatin (MSTN) and atrogin-1, as well as pro-inflammatory cytokines, including tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) and interleukin-6 (IL-6), were elevated in aged mice, but these increases were reduced by baicalin. While mitochondrial fission regulator, dynamin-related protein 1 (DRP-1), and apoptosis-related protein (apoptotic protease activating factor 1 (Apaf-1)) expressions were higher in aged mice than young mice, and their expression were downregulated following baicalin administration. The comprehensive results of this study suggest that baicalin provides beneficial effects on the treatment of sarcopenia not only by suppressing muscle atrophic factor expression and inflammation but also attenuating DRP-1-mediated mitochondrial fission and apoptosis.
黄芩苷是一种具有抗凋亡和抗炎作用的天然黄酮类化合物。它对肌肉萎缩有一些有益的作用。然而，其对与年龄相关的肌肉萎缩的影响尚不清楚。在本文中，我们使用握力测试、组织学分析和蛋白质免疫印迹法，研究了黄芩苷是否对老年小鼠的骨骼肌萎缩具有保护作用及其潜在机制。黄芩苷增加了老年小鼠的肌肉总质量和力量。同样，在两个黄芩苷给药组中，股四头肌（QD）的横截面积均显著增加。此外，黄芩苷使两组小鼠的肌纤维大小分布向大纤维方向转变。老年小鼠中肌肉萎缩因子如肌肉生长抑制素（MSTN）和肌肉萎缩相关基因1（atrogin-1）以及促炎细胞因子包括肿瘤坏死因子-α（TNF-α）和白细胞介素-6（IL-6）的表达水平升高，但黄芩苷可降低这些升高。虽然线粒体分裂调节因子动力相关蛋白1（DRP-1）和凋亡相关蛋白（凋亡蛋白酶激活因子1（Apaf-1））在老年小鼠中的表达高于年轻小鼠，且黄芩苷给药后它们的表达下调。本研究的综合结果表明，黄芩苷不仅通过抑制肌肉萎缩因子表达和炎症，而且通过减弱DRP-1介导的线粒体分裂和凋亡，对治疗肌肉减少症具有有益作用。
