Abstract
Background and Objective: Diabetic amyotrophy is one of serious muscular complications in diabetes. Asiatic Acid (AA) possessed multiple pharmacological actions in diabetic complications. However, the potential role of AA on diabetic myopathy has been not reported to date. Current study aimed to estimate improvement effect of AA on diabetic-associated muscle atrophy in mice. Materials and Methods: Mice were intraperitoneal injection with streptozocin (STZ, 50 mg kg–1) for 5 days to establish diabetic model. When blood glucose concentration was above 16.7 mmol/L, mice were treated with AA (30 mg/kg/day) for 8 weeks. Then, mice were euthanized to collect blood and muscle samples for further research. Results: Our data demonstrated that AA significantly reduced blood glucose concentration and led to a significant decrease in serum glucose (Glu), triglyceride (TG), cholesterol (TC), Creatine Kinase (CK), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), blood urea (BUN) and creatinine (Cre) in diabetic mice. Moreover, AA significantly increased myofiber size and weight of gastrocnemius and enhanced grip strength to improve muscle atrophy. In skeletal muscle, AA significantly relieved Atrogin-1, MuRF-1, TNF-a, IL-6 and Bax expressions and elevated Nrf-1, Pgc-1α and Bcl-2 expressions in diabetic mice. Conclusion: AA produced beneficial effects against diabetic amyotrophy through its accommodation of inflammatory response, mitochondrial dysfunction and apoptosis in mice. These biological functions suggested AA could be used as a novel medicine for improvement of diabetes-induced skeletal muscle atrophy.