Blood pressure lowering effect of scopoletin on oxidative stress-associated hypertensive rats

Abstract

Scopoletin is a coumarin derivative known for its antioxidant capacity. The present study was undertaken to investigate the blood pressure lowering effect of scopoletin in multiple models of hypertensive rats. To obtain animal models of hypertension, a number of 18 Wistar-Kyoto male rats were divided into two groups receiving a combination of oral prednisone and salt for 14 days (PN group, the endocrine hypertension model) while another half received the same inducers with an additional Nω-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME) for 2 days (PNL group, oxidative stress-associated hypertension model). The rats were anesthetized with propofol and subdivided into 3 groups receiving control, scopoletin 10 mg/kg, and tempol 100 μmol/kg. The systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), mean arterial blood pressure (MAP) and heart rate (HR) were recorded for 120 minutes after a single dose of drug commencement. The serum concentration of nitric oxide (NO) was measured before and at the end of the experiment. The data were analyzed using two-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s HSD with 95% confidence interval. The results showed that scopoletin decreased the SBP, DBP, and MAP of the rats significantly (p<0.05) without any significant effect on the animal HR (p>0.1). The concentration of NO in animals receiving scopoletin and tempol was greater as compared control, but there was no significant difference in blood NO between both hypertensive models (p>0.1). The study concludes that scopoletin is effective as blood pressure lowering agent on oxidative stress-associated hypertensive rats.