Apigenin With Protective Effect Against Oxidative Injury to Skeletal Muscle Cells via Activation of the Nrf-2HO-1 Pathway

Human skeletal muscle would suffer from an oxidative injury caused by long-term training or exhaustive exercise. It is important to scavenge oxygen free radicals in due course to reduce oxidative damage to human skeletal muscle cells (HSKMC) by some means. Apigenin, as an effective antioxidant, is likely to protect HSKMC against oxidative injury. In this study, tert-butyl hydroperoxide (t-BHP) was used to induce oxidative injured HSKMC. Then, we studied the protective effect of apigenin on cell viability, oxidative stress status, and the expression of antioxidation-related proteins and tried to understand the mechanisms driving these effects. Results show that the cellular viability of HSKMC could be obviously improved by apigenin treatment at the concentration of 80 μM. Pretreatment with celery resulted in the activity of related enzymes approaching normal levels, and decrease the release of malondialdehyde and the level of intracellular reactive oxygen species in HSKMC. The Nuclear factor E2-related factor (Nrf2) signaling pathway could also be activated by apigenin. Therefore, apigenin could attenuate t-BHP induced oxidative injury in HSKMC through enhancement of the activities of related antioxidant enzymes by activating the Nrf2 pathway.