Abstract

Myocardial infarction (MI) is an insidious disease, gently spreading in developed and developing countries. MI is the consequence of hypoxia to myocardial tissue which may leads to apoptosis, narcosis and followed by cardiac cell death. Activation of apoptotic pathways during myocardial infarction (MI) is frequently reported in clinical, preclinical and post-mortem studies. Several apoptosis inducing factors and signalling cascades leading to death of cardiomyocytes culminate into MI. Such involvement of ischemia induced apoptosis in MI is widely accepted. Apoptosis is a natural process for regulating the homeostasis in cellular organelles. Unlike the necrosis, it is a synchronize energy dependent process which is carried out by shrinkage of the cell. This contraction of cell leads to squeezing of nucleus and nuclear chromatin into brusquely demarcated masses. However, such programmed cell death in several tissues including myocardium becomes pathogenic under certain conditions. In-addition, reactive oxygen species (ROS) and generated oxidative stress is also play a key role in production of apoptosis and several associated signalling alteration which ultimately leads to MI. Recently, certain natural products especially from the plant kingdom have been evaluated for their anti-apoptotic potential. There is an up rise in the investigations delineating the exact mechanisms through which natural phytochemicals target MI associated apoptosis. This review explores novel signalling pathways and target sites for anti-apoptotic phytochemicals having potential to check the cellular apoptosis consequent to MI. A new vista may explore in the prospective treatment of MI by using apoptosis-modulating natural products.