Ellagic acid promotes ventricular remodeling after myocardial infarction through inhibiting inflammatory response

Objective: Ellagic acid has anti-proliferative and antioxidant properties, which can treat some heart diseases, including myocardial infarction. The purpose of this study is to explore the effects of ellagic acid on ventricular remodeling after myocardial infarction. Methods: Rat myocardial infarction was established, and treated with different concentration of ellagic acid, histological examination was performed by H&E staining and cardiac function assessment was evaluated. In addition, the inflammatory responses were performed by immunofluorescence staining and RT-PCR. Finally, the possible mechanism was explored by Western blot. Results: In present study, we primarily found that ellagic acid was likely to alleviate the severity of myocardial infarction and improve the cardiac function in rats. The follow-up experiments demonstrated that ellagic acid potently decreased the infiltration of dendritic cell and reduced the inflammatory cytokines secretion including TNF-alpha, IL-1 beta and TGF-beta 1. During the anti-inflammatory process, exogenous ellagic acid could markedly down-regulated the increased the expression of TLR4 and the phosphorylation level of p65, I kappa B and ERK1/2 in rat with myocardial infarction, revealing that TLR4/ERK/NF-kappa B signaling pathway may be the vital downstream targets of ellagic acid. Conclusion: These findings show that ellagic acid targets TLR4/ERK/NF-kappa B signaling pathway, which may have potential clinical value for modulation myocardial infarction.