Chondrocyte apoptosis played a key role on the progression of Osteoarthritis (OA). Safe and effective drugs are urgently needed for the treatment of OA. Previous study reported that Astragaloside IV (ASG-IV) had exerted a protective effect against articular cartilage degeneration by promoting rapid proliferation of chondrocyte. Therefore, the aim of our study is to explore the effects and mechanisms of ASG-IV in chondrocyte apoptosis.

Isobaric Tags For Relative And Absolute Quantitation (iTRAQ)-based quantitative proteomics was used to quantitatively detect and map proteins in SW1353 chondrocyte-like cells pre-treated with ASG-IV or interleukin-1β (IL-1β) or ASG-IV+IL-1β. The iTRAQ-labeled peptides were fractionated by high-accuracy liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS). Cell apoptosis and differentially expressed proteins was detected by flow cytometry (FCM), quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR), and western blotting, respectively.

The apoptosis of the IL-1β-induced SW1353 cells treated with ASG-IV was greatly inhibited. Bioinformatics analysis revealed that gamma actin 1 (ACTG1) and Yes Associated Protein 1 (YAP1), participating in the Hippo signaling pathway and Vitronectin (VTN) and Collagen Type I Alpha 1 Chain (COL1A1), involving in the extracellular matrix (ECM)-receptor interaction signaling pathway, were all significantly up-regulated in the IL-1β-induced SW1353 cells after treatment with ASG-IV. The qRT-PCR and Western blotting results confirmed the up-regulation of these four genes.

ASG-IV played a positive role in human osteoarthritic chondrocyte apoptosis, possibly through modulation of the Hippo signaling pathway by up-regulating YAP1and ACTG1 expression, and also by up-regulating VTN and COL1A1, which are involved in the ECM-receptor interaction pathway. Taken together, all the results suggested that ASG-IV had a novel therapeutic potential for the treatment of OA.