LAUSR

Atherosclerosis, a leading cause of worldwide mortality and morbidity, is mainly controlled with statins, however, the statins have severe side effects like rhabdomyolysis. In search of an alternative for statin, we investigated anti-atherosclerotic and anti-hyperlipidemic effects of two different species of Raphanus sativus Linn (also known as radish), Jeju (white radish) and Ganghwa (purple radish) cultivated in South Korea. An atherosclerosis model in ApoE knockout mice was firstly established with high fat diet, followed by feeding the mice with extracts of each radish. Concentration of plasma lipids and histological changes were evaluated. Metabolomics analysis of urine was determined to see the effect of radish. Ganghwa-radish treated mice were observed with significantly decreased levels of total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein, triglyceride, atherogenic index and cardiac risk factor while high-density lipoprotein was significantly increased. Steroid biosynthesis and steroid hormone biosynthesis were although significantly altered metabolic pathways among both radish treated groups, however, significant changes in these pathways were mainly observed with the treatment of Ganghwa-radish. Crucially, estrogens, estrone and estradiol, were significantly decreased in Ganghwa-radish treated group compared to control. In conclusion, we confirmed the prominent antilipidemic effect of Ganghwa-radish compared with Jeju-radish and such results might be due to the inhibition of estrogens by Ganghwa-radish treatment.