Chicoric Acid Improves Heart and Blood Responses to Hypobaric Hypoxia in Tibetan Yaks

摘要

Yak is a wild bovine species living on the Qinghai Tibet Plateau that demonstrates good adaptability to the hypoxic environment. Chicoric acid, a natural phenolic compound, is known as having anti-oxidant, antiviral, anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties. However, its effect on hypoxia adaptability of yak is still unclear. In this study 40 yaks were selected that were of similar age, parity and weight, and divided into the control group and experimental groups 1, 2, 3, randomly. Results showed that chicoric acid significantly improved RBC, HGB, and WBC. There are significantly beneficial effects to increasing total protein contents (P 0.05): all treatments increased HDL-C contents, and supplementations 100 mg/h significantly decreased the content of TG on the 60th day (P 0.05). Contents of the serum related enzymes like ALP, GOP and GPT showed varying degrees of change, but no significant differences and the indexes of anti-oxidant capacity (T-AOC and GSH-Px) were significantly improved (P 0.05), but MDA was decreased (P 0.05) under the action of the chicoric acid. Hypoxia-inducible factor in serum such as HIF-2 alpha, EPO, ROS, Fe3+ and Tf are all significantly decreased (P 0.05). The myocardial mitochondrial parameters mtDNA, UCP2, PGC1-alpha, NRF1 and mitochondrial complexes were altered remarkably. Some indicators of glucose metabolism presented variation trends. Taken together, chicoric acid has shown a positive effect on the adaptive ability of yak in high altitude, hypoxic environment in plateau areas. Our findings reported a new potential means to enhance immunity and inflammatory response and improve the anti-oxidant capacity.