Oxidative stress is highly associated with the development of diabetes mellitus (DM), especially pancreatic beta-cell injury. Flavonoids derived from plants have caused important attention in the prevention or treatment of DM. Lotus seedpod belongs to a traditional Chinese herbal medicine and has been indicated to possess antioxidant, anti-age, anti-glycative, and hepatoprotective activities. The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the pancreatic beta-cell protective effects of lotus seedpod aqueous extracts (LSE) against oxidative injury. According to HPLC/ESI-MS-MS method, LSE was confirmed to have flavonoids derivatives, especially quercetin-3-glucuronide (Q3G). In vitro, LSE dose-dependently improved the survival and function of rat pancreatic beta-cells (RIN-m5F) from hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)-mediated loss of cell viability, impairment of insulin secretion, and promotion of oxidative stress. LSE showed potential in decreasing the H2O2-induced occurrence of apoptosis. In addition, H2O2-triggered acidic vesicular organelle formation and microtubule-associated protein light chain 3 (LC3)-II upregulation, markers of autophagy, were increased by LSE. Molecular data explored that antiapoptotic and autophagic effects of LSE, comparable to that of Q3G, might receptively be mediated via phospho-Bcl-2-associated death promoter (p-Bad)/B-cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2) and class III phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase (PI3K)/LC3-II signal pathway. In vivo, LSE improved the DM symptoms and pancreatic cell injury better than metformin, a drug that is routinely prescribed to treat DM. These data implied that LSE induces the autophagic signaling, leading to protect beta-cells from oxidative stress-related apoptosis and injury.
Keywords: apoptosis; autophagy; lotus seedpod; oxidative stress; pancreatic beta-cell.