Cordycepin alleviates myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury by enhancing autophagy via AMPK-mTOR pathway

To estimate the cardioprotective mechanism of cordycepin on myocardial ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury. The left anterior descending artery of mice was ligated transiently to establish the myocardial I/R model. TTC/Evans Blue staining and TUNEL assay were performed to quantify the infarct size and apoptosis index. The cardiac function was evaluated by echocardiography. Neonatal rat ventricular cardiomyocytes (NRVCs) underwent hypoxia and reoxygenation (H/R). MTS and LDH were detected to measured cell viability and necrosis respectively. The results suggested that cordycepin could markedly decrease apoptosis, reduce infarct size, and improve cardiac function in mice subjected to I/R injury, alongside with enhanced autophagy. In NRVCs, cordycepin treatment obviously reduced ROS production. In addition, cordycepin partly promoted autophagy in the context of H/R injury by regulating AMPK/mTOR pathway. Our data demonstrated that cordycepin exerts cardio-protective effect and promotes cardiac functional recovery following myocardial I/R by enhancing autophagy via AMPK-mTOR signaling pathway.Graphical abstract