Basic fibroblast growth factor alleviates metabolic abnormalities in the heart of streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats

Background Basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) has the ability to treat diabetic cardiomyopathy, but its therapeutic mechanism is still far from being fully understood. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of bFGF on heart metabolism in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats and explore possible metabolic mechanisms. Methods We analyzed metabolic profile in the heart of the normal control, diabetic, and bFGF-treated diabetic rats by using a nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)-based metabolomics approach. Principal component analysis was used to examine metabolic pattern changes and identify important metabolites. Metabolic pathway analysis was carried out using significantly altered metabolites. Results We found that bFGF treatment can effectively attenuate myocardial fibrosis in the diabetic rats. Metabolomics results show that metabolic phenotypes were significantly changed in the heart among normal control, diabetic, and bFGF-treated diabetic rats. Diabetic rats had significantly higher levels of taurine, leucine, isoleucine, valine, and glutamate, but lower levels of acetate, aspartate, creatine, succinate, glutamine, and high-energy phosphate pool (AXP) in the heart than normal control rats. Of note, these metabolic disorders can be partly reversed in the heart of diabetic rats after bFGF treatment. Conclusions Our results reveal that bFGF attenuated diabetic cardiac fibrosis and metabolic disorders mainly involving amino acid metabolism and energy metabolism. However, their causal associations still need to be further investigated.