AUTHOR=Chen Cong , Yu Lin-Tong , Cheng Bai-Ru , Xu Jiang-Lin , Cai Yun , Jin Jia-Lin , Feng Ru-Li , Xie Long , Qu Xin-Yan , Li Dong , Liu Jing , Li Yan , Cui Xiao-Yun , Lu Jin-Jin , Zhou Kun , Lin Qian , Wan Jie TITLE=Promising Therapeutic Candidate for Myocardial Ischemia/Reperfusion Injury: What Are the Possible Mechanisms and Roles of Phytochemicals? JOURNAL=Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine VOLUME=8 YEAR=2022 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/cardiovascular-medicine/articles/10.3389/fcvm.2021.792592 DOI=10.3389/fcvm.2021.792592 ISSN=2297-055X ABSTRACT=

Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is one of the most effective reperfusion strategies for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) despite myocardial ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury, causing one of the causes of most cardiomyocyte injuries and deaths. The pathological processes of myocardial I/R injury include apoptosis, autophagy, and irreversible cell death caused by calcium overload, oxidative stress, and inflammation. Eventually, myocardial I/R injury causes a spike of further cardiomyocyte injury that contributes to final infarct size (IS) and bound with hospitalization of heart failure as well as all-cause mortality within the following 12 months. Therefore, the addition of adjuvant intervention to improve myocardial salvage and cardiac function calls for further investigation. Phytochemicals are non-nutritive bioactive secondary compounds abundantly found in Chinese herbal medicine. Great effort has been put into phytochemicals because they are often in line with the expectations to improve myocardial I/R injury without compromising the clinical efficacy or to even produce synergy. We summarized the previous efforts, briefly outlined the mechanism of myocardial I/R injury, and focused on exploring the cardioprotective effects and potential mechanisms of all phytochemical types that have been investigated under myocardial I/R injury. Phytochemicals deserve to be utilized as promising therapeutic candidates for further development and research on combating myocardial I/R injury. Nevertheless, more studies are needed to provide a better understanding of the mechanism of myocardial I/R injury treatment using phytochemicals and possible side effects associated with this approach.