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Background: Myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury (MIRI) refers to severe damage to the ischemic myocardium following the restoration of blood flow, and it is a major complication of reperfusion therapy for myocardial infarction. Notably, drugs such as metoprolol have been utilized to reduce ischemia-reperfusion injury. Tanshinone IIA is a major constituent extracted from Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge. Recently, tanshinone IIA has been studied extensively in animal models for controlling MIRI. Therefore, we conducted a meta-analysis on the application of tanshinone IIA in rat models with MIRI to evaluate the therapeutic effects of tanshinone IIA., Methods: A comprehensive search was conducted across PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, the Cochrane Library, the China National Knowledge Infrastructure database, the Wanfang database, and the Chinese Scientific Journal Database to gather studies on tanshinone IIA intervention in rat models with MIRI.We employed SYRCLE's risk of bias tool to assess study quality. The primary outcome indicators were superoxide dismutase (SOD) and malondialdehyde (MDA). Myocardial infarction area was a secondary outcome indicator. This study was registered at PROSPERO (registration number CRD 42022344447)., Results: According to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 15 eligible studies were selected from 295 initially identified studies. In rat models with MIRI, tanshinone IIA significantly increased SOD levels while reducing MDA levels and myocardial infarction area. Moreover, the duration of myocardial ischemia influenced the effectiveness of tanshinone IIA. However, additional high-quality research studies are needed to establish the efficacy and definitive guidelines for the use of tanshinone IIA. Animal studies demonstrated that tanshinone IIA exerted a significant therapeutic effect when the ischemia duration was less than 40 minutes. Tanshinone IIA was found to be more effective when administered via intravenous, intraperitoneal, and intragastric routes at doses above 5 mg/kg. Additionally, treatment with tanshinone IIA at all stages-prior to myocardial ischemia, after ischemia but before reperfusion, prior to ischemia and after reperfusion, and after reperfusion-showed satisfactory results., Conclusions: Tanshinone IIA enhanced SOD activity and reduced MDA levels, thereby ameliorating oxidative stress damage during MIRI. Additionally, it reduced the myocardial infarction area, indicating its effectiveness in mitigating MIRI-induced damage in rats and demonstrating a myocardial protective effect. These findings contribute valuable insights for developing MIRI treatment strategies., Competing Interests: The authors declare there are no competing interests., (©2024 Zhang et al.)

Tripterygium wilfordii Hook F (TwHF) has been widely used to relieve rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in many countries. However, a bibliometric analysis of published articles discussing this treatment has not been conducted. This study aimed to explore the current status and trends of TwHF for treating RA. Literature was extracted from the Science Citation Index Expanded Database of the Web of Science from January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2022. CiteSpace and the "bibliometrix" package were adopted to analyze the number of publications, countries, institutions, journals, authors, and keywords and to draw collaborative network maps. One hundred sixty-seven articles were identified. China has the most articles, followed by the United States. The China Academy of Chinese Medical Science had the study's most significant publications and the highest centrality. The author analysis combined with the analysis of the cited authors, the rank of Lin Na is in an important position. The Journal of Ethnopharmacology, Frontiers in Pharmacology has published the most relevant articles and is the hottest related journal. For keyword analysis, "classification," "criteria," "mechanism," and "methotrexate" were still being researched hot until 2022. Further investigation showed that "TNF-α," "proliferation," "endothelial growth factor," "NF-κB," and "collagen-induced arthritis" also remains research hotspot. Our results provide information on the research status, institutions, countries, authors, published journals, keywords related to using TwHF to treat RA, and theoretical support for further research., Competing Interests: The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose., (Copyright © 2023 the Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.)

Background: Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is the most common gastrointestinal disease worldwide, with diarrhea-predominant irritable bowel syndrome (IBS-D) being the prevalent subtype. However, its pathogenesis remains unclear. Research has increasingly focused on identifying genetic factors in the mechanisms underlying IBS., Objective: We aimed to explore key gene nodes and potential microRNA-mRNA regulatory pairs of IBS-D using bioinformatics methods., Methods: We downloaded the GSE36701 microarray dataset from the Gene Expression Omnibus database and obtained 1358 differentially expressed mRNAs by analyzing mRNA profiles using the GEO2R analysis tool. Based on our previous study, we used TargetScan, miTarBase, and miRDB to predict the downstream genes of three known microRNAs (hsa-let-7b-5p, hsa-miR-19b-3p, and hsamiR- 20a-5p), and the microRNA-mRNA regulatory network was visualized using Cytoscape., Results: A total of 795 downstream target genes were found in TargetScan, miRTarBase, and miRDB databases, and 50 candidate genes were obtained. The Metascape and STRING databases were used to perform enrichment analysis and construct a protein-protein interaction network of candidate genes. Finally, we constructed a network of 3 microRNAs and 50 candidate mRNAs, among which 28 negative relation ship pairs and 5 key axes (hsa-miR-20a-5p/VEGFA, hsa-let-7b- 5p/MSN, hsa-let-7b-5p /PPP1R16B, hsa-19b-3p/ITGA2, and hsa-19b-3p/PIK3R3) were identified., Conclusion: We report five novel microRNA-mRNA regulatory axes in IBS-D pathogenesis and speculated that PIK3R3, negatively regulated by hsa-miR-19b-3p, may regulate NF-κB production through the PI3K/Akt pathway, which accounts for the occurrence of clinical symptoms in IBS-D patients. Our findings may offer key biomarkers for IBS-D diagnosis and treatment., (Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.net.)