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Received Nov 13, 2017; Revised Jan 8, 2018; Accepted Jan 31, 2018
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
1. Introduction
Ischemic heart disease (IHD), also known as coronary artery disease, is the most common type of cardiovascular disease, which occurred by reduced blood supply to the heart [1]. It is the most prevalent cause of death worldwide, especially in developed countries. Indeed, 110 million people are affected with ischemic heart disease and it resulted in 8.9 million deaths which make up 15.9% of all dead people [2, 3]. Until now, one of the effective approaches for IHD is the surgical intervention which restores the blood flow to the ischemic region. However, restoration of blood flow paradoxically causes to cardiac tissue injury known as myocardial ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury [4, 5]. Accumulating evidences indicate that major pathological events associated with I/R injury are oxidative stress, lipid peroxidation, intracellular calcium overload, and mitochondrial dysfunction [6]. Among them, oxidative stress which causes to accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) plays a major role in the development of cardiac I/R injury [7]. Excessive ROS production leads to increased mitochondrial permeability and in turn induces apoptosis in cardiac cells, which further progresses to the chronic heart failure [8].
Recently, many natural compounds have been identified for their potential antioxidant properties by modulating the activity of antioxidant enzymes and survival signaling pathways in cardiac cells [9]. Of these, quercetin, a flavonoid found in wine, tea, and plants, has been intensively investigated for its antioxidant effect in H2O2-induced oxidative stress [10] and doxorubicin-induced cardiac injury in H9c2 cardiomyoblasts [11]. These studies demonstrated that the treatment of quercetin inhibited apoptosis, ROS production, and lipid peroxidation by modulating mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) activity. Several studies also reported the beneficial actions of resveratrol, a polyphenol contained in grapes, red wine, and peanuts, in I/R-injured cardiomyocytes [12] and against the cardiotoxicity induced by various chemotherapeutic drugs, including doxorubicin and arsenic trioxide [13]. These cardioprotective roles of resveratrol are dependent upon activation of either AMPK or Sirt1 pathway [14, 15].
Cucurbitacins are triterpenoids that originally isolated from the Cucurbitaceae family...