Inhibition of cardiac oxidative and endoplasmic reticulum stress-mediated apoptosis by curcumin treatment contributes to protection against acute myocarditis

Curcumin is used anecdotally as an herb in traditional Indian and Chinese medicine. In the present study, the effects and possible mechanism of curcumin in experimental autoimmune myocarditis (EAM) rats were further investigated. They were divided randomly into a treatment and vehicle group, and orally administrated curcumin (50 mg/kg/day) and 1% gum arabic, respectively, for 3 weeks after myosin injection. The results showed that curcumin significantly suppressed the myocardial protein expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and the catalytic subunit of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate reduced (NADPH) oxidase. In addition, curcumin significantly decreased myocardial endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress signaling proteins and improved cardiac function. Furthermore, curcumin significantly decreased the key regulators or inducers of apoptosis. In summary, our results indicate that curcumin has the potential to protect EAM by modulating cardiac oxidative and ER stress-mediated apoptosis, and provides a novel therapeutic strategy for autoimmune myocarditis.