Background: The heart-brain axis (HBA) is a bidirectional flow of information that modulates tolerance to multiorgan injury in patients at high cardiovascular risk. Synergistic effect of psychosocial stress (PS) with pre-existing obesity, two main cardiovascular and cerebrovascular risk factors, leads to HBA dysfunction that is a cause of poor postoperative outcome. Since pre-operative nutritional interventions promote earlier surgical recovery, we hypothesized that regular dietary supplementation with barley-derived (1.3) β-d-glucan (βG), a natural water-soluble polysaccharide with epigenetic activities, prevents heart and brain injury in mice exposed to risk of HBA dysfunction (HBD). Materials and Methods: HBD was induced by feeding 10-week-old male wild-type C57BL/6J mice a high-fat diet (HFD) for 18 weeks, which were exposed during the last 14 days of dieting to the PS induced by the resident intruder paradigm. Normal 10-week-old C57BL/6J male mice (CT group, n=5) were compared to age-matched untreated mice with HBD (HBD group, n=6) and mice fed with HFD supplemented with 3% βG from the eighth week of HFD through the end of PS exposure (HBD+βG group, n=6). Results: HBD+βG showed spatial memory recovery and normalization of anxiety-related traits compared to HBD mice (p<0.05) as assessed by Y-maze and Elevated Plus Maze test. In addition, left ventricular (LV) ejection fraction was significantly improved (+15.68%) in HBD+βG vs. HBD, as assessed by echocardiography. Immunohistochemical analysis conducted on perfused hippocampal slices showed levels of markers of synaptic plasticity (parvalbumin-positive interneurons), neurogenesis (bromodeoxyuridine-positive cells) and astrogliosis (glial fibrillary acidic protein-positive astrocytes) comparable to the CT group, while dentate gyrus volume (Hoechst) did not change in HBD+βG as compared to HBD group. In the same animals, βG prevented cardiomyocyte hypertrophy and myocardial fibrosis compared to HBD hearts. In addition, the number of apoptotic cardiac cells was reduced in HBD+βG as compared to HBD mice (TUNEL+, p<0.01) related to reduced oxidative stress (p<0.01). Conclusions: Dietary βG supplementation early in the development of HBD simultaneously prevented hippocampal and cardiac injury. While these results are limited to an experimental model of disease, they nevertheless suggest that dietary βG supplementation might be effective for developing a new approach of clinical perioperative neuro/cardioprotection.
Dietary barley Β-D-glucan supplementation protects against heart-brain axis dysfunction in mice: a new approach of perioperative neuro/cardioprotection
Baroni C.;Lionetti V.
2022-01-01
Abstract
Background: The heart-brain axis (HBA) is a bidirectional flow of information that modulates tolerance to multiorgan injury in patients at high cardiovascular risk. Synergistic effect of psychosocial stress (PS) with pre-existing obesity, two main cardiovascular and cerebrovascular risk factors, leads to HBA dysfunction that is a cause of poor postoperative outcome. Since pre-operative nutritional interventions promote earlier surgical recovery, we hypothesized that regular dietary supplementation with barley-derived (1.3) β-d-glucan (βG), a natural water-soluble polysaccharide with epigenetic activities, prevents heart and brain injury in mice exposed to risk of HBA dysfunction (HBD). Materials and Methods: HBD was induced by feeding 10-week-old male wild-type C57BL/6J mice a high-fat diet (HFD) for 18 weeks, which were exposed during the last 14 days of dieting to the PS induced by the resident intruder paradigm. Normal 10-week-old C57BL/6J male mice (CT group, n=5) were compared to age-matched untreated mice with HBD (HBD group, n=6) and mice fed with HFD supplemented with 3% βG from the eighth week of HFD through the end of PS exposure (HBD+βG group, n=6). Results: HBD+βG showed spatial memory recovery and normalization of anxiety-related traits compared to HBD mice (p<0.05) as assessed by Y-maze and Elevated Plus Maze test. In addition, left ventricular (LV) ejection fraction was significantly improved (+15.68%) in HBD+βG vs. HBD, as assessed by echocardiography. Immunohistochemical analysis conducted on perfused hippocampal slices showed levels of markers of synaptic plasticity (parvalbumin-positive interneurons), neurogenesis (bromodeoxyuridine-positive cells) and astrogliosis (glial fibrillary acidic protein-positive astrocytes) comparable to the CT group, while dentate gyrus volume (Hoechst) did not change in HBD+βG as compared to HBD group. In the same animals, βG prevented cardiomyocyte hypertrophy and myocardial fibrosis compared to HBD hearts. In addition, the number of apoptotic cardiac cells was reduced in HBD+βG as compared to HBD mice (TUNEL+, p<0.01) related to reduced oxidative stress (p<0.01). Conclusions: Dietary βG supplementation early in the development of HBD simultaneously prevented hippocampal and cardiac injury. While these results are limited to an experimental model of disease, they nevertheless suggest that dietary βG supplementation might be effective for developing a new approach of clinical perioperative neuro/cardioprotection.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
