Copyright
©The Author(s) 2026. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Cardiol. Feb 26, 2026; 18(2): 113358
Published online Feb 26, 2026. doi: 10.4330/wjc.v18.i2.113358
Published online Feb 26, 2026. doi: 10.4330/wjc.v18.i2.113358
Melatonin regulates Sirt1/Nrf2/GPX4 pathway to inhibit ferroptosis and alleviate myocardial injury caused by sepsis
Min Zeng, Lin Li, Cheng-Fang Xiang, Yi-Jun Wang, Department of Emergency, The First People’s Hospital of Chenzhou, Chenzhou 423000, Hunan Province, China
Min Zeng, Jinan University, Guangzhou 51063, Guangdong Province, China
Qiong Li, Institute of Critical Care Medicine, The First People’s Hospital of Chenzhou, Chenzhou 423000, Hunan Province, China
Author contributions: Zeng M and Wang YJ were responsible for conceptualization, writing original draft, review and editing; Li Q and Li L were responsible for data curation; Li Q, Li L, and Xiang CF were responsible for formal analysis; all authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by 2025 Hunan Provincial Natural Science Foundation Regional Joint Fund, No. 2025JJ70596.
Institutional animal care and use committee statement: The animal experiments described in this study were authorized and approved by the experimental animal Ethics Committee of Guangdong Provincial Medical Experimental Animal Center (No. D202404-12), and conducted in compliance with the institutional guidelines (Directive 2010/63/EU in Europe) for the care and use of animals.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no competing interests regarding the publication of this paper.
ARRIVE guidelines statement: The authors have read the ARRIVE guidelines, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the ARRIVE guidelines.
Data sharing statement: The data used to support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Yi-Jun Wang, Research Fellow, Department of Emergency, The First People’s Hospital of Chenzhou, No. 108 Luojiajing Street, Chenzhou 423000, Hunan Province, China. wangyijun202507@163.com
Received: August 25, 2025
Revised: September 28, 2025
Accepted: November 28, 2025
Published online: February 26, 2026
Processing time: 170 Days and 20.6 Hours
Revised: September 28, 2025
Accepted: November 28, 2025
Published online: February 26, 2026
Processing time: 170 Days and 20.6 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: Sepsis often results in myocardial injury, a major cause of death in affected patients. In this study, we demonstrated that melatonin, an endogenous hormone with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, protects against sepsis-induced myocardial injury. Using both a mouse model and HL-1 cardiomyocytes, we found that melatonin improved cardiac function, reduced oxidative stress, and inhibited ferroptosis by activating the sirtuin 1/nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2/glutathione peroxidase 4 pathway. These findings provide novel mechanistic insights and highlight the therapeutic potential of melatonin for septic myocardial injury.