Protective Effects of Ginsenosides (20R)-Rg3 on H2O2-Induced Myocardial Cell Injury by Activating Keap-1/Nrf2/HO-1 Signaling Pathway

Ginsenosides (20 S )-Rg3 and (20 R )-Rg3 are famous rare ginsenosides from red ginseng, and their configurations in C-20 are different. This study aimed to investigate the protective mechanism of ginsenosides (20 S )-Rg3 and (20 R )-Rg3 on H 2 O 2 -induced H9C2 cells and compare their activity. The results showed that the ginsenosides (20 S )-Rg3 and (20 R )-Rg3 could increase the cell activity and the levels of GSH-Px, SOD and CAT, and decrease activities of LDH, MDA and ROS. Further studies showed that ginsenosides (20 S )-Rg3 and (20 R )-Rg3 could prevent oxidative stress injury of H9C2 cells by H 2 O 2 through the Keap-1/Nrf2/HO-1 pathway. But the ML385 counteracts these effects. Interestingly, among these results, ginsenoside (20 R )-Rg3 was superior to (20 S )-Rg3, indicating that ginsenoside (20 R )-Rg3 have a stronger effect of antioxidative stress. This study reflected that ginsenoside (20 R )-Rg3 could be used as a potential Nrf2 activator and a safe effective Chinese herbal monomer in the treatment of cardiovascular disease.