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Theranostics 2019; 9(7):1923-1951. doi:10.7150/thno.30787 This issue Cite

Review

Berberine in Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases: From Mechanisms to Therapeutics

Xiaojun Feng¹, Antoni Sureda², Samineh Jafari³, Zahra Memariani⁴, Devesh Tewari⁵, Giuseppe Annunziata⁶, Luigi Barrea⁷, Sherif T.S. Hassan⁸, Karel Šmejkal⁸, Milan Malaník⁸, Alice Sychrová⁸, Davide Barreca⁹, Lovro Ziberna¹⁰, Mohamad Fawzi Mahomoodally¹¹, Gokhan Zengin¹², Suowen Xu^13✉, Seyed Mohammad Nabavi^14✉, Ai-Zong Shen^1✉

1. The First Affiliated Hospital of USTC, Division of Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230001, P.R. China
2. Research Group on Community Nutrition and Oxidative Stress, University of the Balearic Islands, Palma de Mallorca, Spain and CIBEROBN (Physiopathology of Obesity and Nutrition CB12/03/30038), Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain.
3. Department of Pharmacognosy, School of Pharmacy, Zanjan University of Medical Sciences, Zanjan, Iran.
4. Traditional Medicine and History of Medical Sciences Research Center, Health Research Institute, Babol University of Medical Sciences, Babol, Iran
5. Department of Pharmacognosy, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, Punjab, India.
6. Department of Pharmacy, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy.
7. Dipartimento di Medicina Clinica e Chirurgia, Sezione di Endocrinologia, Università Federico II di Napoli, Naples, Italy.
8. Department of Natural Drugs, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Veterinary and Pharmaceutical Sciences Brno, Palackého tř. 1946/1, 612 42 Brno, Czech Republic.
9. Department of Chemical, Biological, Pharmaceutical and Environmental Sciences, University of Messina, 98168, Messina, Italy.
10. Institute of Pharmacology and Experimental Toxicology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
11. Department of Health Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Mauritius, Réduit, Mauritius.
12. Department of Biology, Science Faculty, Selcuk University, Campus, Konya, Turkey.
13. Aab Cardiovascular Research Institute, Department of Medicine, University of Rochester, School of Medicine and Dentistry, Rochester, NY, USA.
14. Applied Biotechnology Research Center, Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, Tehran 14359-16471, Iran.

✉ Corresponding authors: Ai-Zong Shen (sazljlcom); Suowen Xu (suowen.xucom); Seyed Mohammad Nabavi (Nabavi208com)

Abstract

Cardiovascular and metabolic diseases (CVMD) are the leading causes of death worldwide, underscoring the urgent necessity to develop new pharmacotherapies. Berberine (BBR) is an eminent component of traditional Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine for more than 2000 years. Recently, BBR has attracted much interest for its pharmacological actions in treating and/or managing CVMD. Recent discoveries of basic, translational and clinical studies have identified many novel molecular targets of BBR (such as AMPK, SIRT1, LDLR, PCSK9, and PTP1B) and provided novel evidences supporting the promising therapeutic potential of BBR to combat CVMD. Thus, this review provides a timely overview of the pharmacological properties and therapeutic application of BBR in CVMD, and underlines recent pharmacological advances which validate BBR as a promising lead drug against CVMD.

Keywords: berberine, cardiovascular diseases, metabolic diseases, targets, therapeutics

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