Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge, known as danshen in China, is a key medicinal herb in traditional Chinese medicine that has long been used for the treatment of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disorders. Its principal bioactive constituents fall into two broad categories: water-soluble phenolic acids (primarily including danshensu, salvianic acid A, salvianolic acid B, and rosmarinic acid) and lipid-soluble diterpenoids (primarily including tanshinone I, tanshinone IIA, cryptotanshinone, and dihydrotanshinone). Accumulating evidence shows that these active components exert diverse pharmacological effects, including anti-tumor, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and anti-neurodegenerative activities, via modulating the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/protein kinase B (Akt) signaling pathway. Consistently, these components hold promising therapeutic potential against various diseases, including cancer, atherosclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, and diabetic nephropathy. Nevertheless, there is still a lack of a comprehensive and systematic summary of the precise mechanisms by which the active ingredients of danshen exert their therapeutic actions against the aforementioned diseases via the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway. To address this gap, this review systematically summarizes the regulatory effects of danshen's active components on the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway, aiming to clarify their therapeutic potential in various pathological conditions and thereby provide novel insights for the basic research and clinical application of danshen.
Cheng et al. (Sun,) studied this question.