Dapagliflozin Alleviates Myocardial Inflammation by Regulating the Macrophage Polarization and Stat3-related Pathways in Coxsackie Virus B3-induced Acute Viral Myocarditis
Abstract Viral myocarditis (VMC), which is most prevalently caused by Coxsackievirus B3 (CVB3) infection, is a serious clinical condition characterized by cardiac inflammation. Dapagliflozin, a kind of sodium glucose co-transporters 2(SGLT-2) inhibitor, exhibited protective effects on plenty of inflammatory diseases, while its effect on viral myocarditis has not been studied. Recently we found the protective effect of dapagliflozin on VMC. After CVB3 infection, dapagliflozin were given orally to Balb/c male mice for 8 days and then the severity of myocarditis was assessed. Our results indicated that dapagliflozin significantly alleviated the severity of viral myocarditis, elevated the survival rate, and ameliorated cardiac function. Besides, dapagliflozin can decrease the level of proinflammatory cytokines included IL-1β, IL-6, TNF-α. Furthermore, dapagliflozin can inhibit macrophages differentiate to classically activated macrophages (M1) in cardiac tissue and activate the Stat3 signal pathway which is reported to promote polarization of the alternatively activated macrophage (M2). In conclusion, our study demonstrates that dapagliflozin alleviates myocardial inflammation by regulating the macrophage polarization and Stat3-related pathways in coxsackie virus B3-induced acute viral myocarditis.