Objectives Heart failure, which has become the leading cause of cardiovascular disease mortality worldwide, is the final destination of cardiac hypertrophy. So how to delay the process of myocardial hypertrophy has become an important issue in the prevention of heart failure. Chlorogenic acid as the active component of the traditional chinese herb has showed to effectively reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. The purpose of this research is to investigate whether chlorogenic acid can effectively inhibit isoproterenol (ISO)-induced cardiac hypertrophy.

Methods Cardiomyocytes were induced by 10 uM ISO for 48 h, and then cardiomyocytes were repaired by PBS or chlorogenic acid with the final concentration of 10, 50, 100 μM. mRNA transcription and protein expression of ANP, BNP, and β-MHC were detected by real-time PCR and western blot. Intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) was measured by ROS Assay Kit.

Results We found the mRNA levels and the protein levels of ANP, BNP and β-MHC of Iso-induced cardiomyocytes were obviously higher than the control. These indicators after chlorogenic acid treatment were significantly reduced, comparing to the PBS groups. Moreover chlorogenic acid produced a dose-dependent reduction in the degree of hypertrophy. ROS of the groups with chlorogenic acid treatment was also lower than PBS groups.

Conclusions This study mainly discovers that chlorogenic acid can improve ISO-induced cardiomyocyte hypertrophy. Its mechanism may be that chlorogenic acid scavenges oxygen free radicals and reduces inflammation. In our experiment, the expression of NF-kB had a downside in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy by chlorogenic acid treatment. But we need to confirm this phenomenon in further experiments. Experimental results suggested that the apoptosis of cardiomyocytes was not obvious by flow cytometry.