Salidroside (SDS), a traditional Chinese medicine, possesses many important functional activities such as anti-hypoxia, anti-fatigue, enhancing work performance, and is especially famous in the treatment of mountain mal-hypoxia in Tibet. Here we designed the study to evaluate the pharmacological effect of SDS on expression of ET-1 and its receptors in hypoxia-treated pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells (PASMCs). Chicken embryonic PASMCs incubated with or without SDS for 1h were then subjected to the hypoxic exposure for 24h. We evaluated the expression levels of ET-1 and its receptors mRNA in treated PASMCs. Compared with the hypoxia-treated group, the levels of ET-1 gene expression were notably decreased in both the moderate dose group (80μg/ml) and the high dose group (120μg/ml) (P<0.01, P<0.05) respectively, but no obvious decrease was found in the low dose group (40μg/ml). Meanwhile, pretreatment with SDS (40, 80, 120μg/ml) was found to be effective in reducing (P<0.01, P<0.01, P<0.05) the expression levels of ETA in avian PASMCs exposed to hypoxic conditions in vitro.  Moreover, pretreatment with SDS markedly attenuated (P<0.01) ETB mRNA expression levels in the low-dose group (40μg/ml) and the moderate-dose group (80μg/ml), while in high dose group (120μg/ml), there was no obvious decrease. Collectively, our findings showed that SDS has a significant influence on the expression of ET-1 and its receptors in hypoxia-treated avian PASMCs.

Key words: Broiler chicken, Endothelin-1, Hypoxia, Pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells, Salidroside