Figure 7.

The effects of Li-Fu formula on hypercholesterolemia-induced mitochondrial-dependent apoptotic pathway in hamsters. Our proposed integrative hypothesis indicates that cardiac mitochondrial-dependent apoptotic pathway is more active under hypercholesterolemia, whereas IGF-PI3K-Akt is down regulated. The decreased IGF-1, phosphorylated Akt, decreasaed Bcl2, phosphorylated Bad, increased pro-apoptotic Bad, increased cytochrome c release, increased activated-caspase 9 and increased caspase 3 were detected in the heart of hypercholesterolemia hamaster. The arrow represents its increasing or decreasing under the condition of hypercholesterolemia. All these changes can be suppressed by Li-Fu formula treatment.