Salvianolic acid B improves the disruption of high glucose-mediated brain microvascular endothelial cells via the ROS/HIF-1α/VEGF and miR-200b/VEGF signaling pathways

•Sal B up-regulated the expression of TJ proteins induced by high glucose.•Sal B decreased the BBB permeability induced by high glucose.•Sal B inhibited the expression of HIF-1α and VEGF.•Sal B inhibited the expression of VEGF via upregulating miR-200b. The study investigated the roles and mechanisms of Salvianolic acid B (Sal B) on permeability of rat brain microvascular endothelial cells (RBMECs) exposed to high glucose. The results demonstrated that Sal B greatly up-regulated the expression of tight junction (TJ) proteins and decreased the permeability of RBMECs compared with the control group. And the increase of reactive oxidative species (ROS) production, the upregulation of hypoxia-inducible factor-1 alpha (HIF-1α) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) protein induced by high glucose were antagonized by Sal B. In addition, a great decrease of microRNA-200b (miR-200b) was observed in the RBMECs under high-glucose condition, which was significantly increased by Sal B pretreatment. And overexpression of miR-200b markedly attenuated the RBMECs permeability and inhibited the expression of VEGF protein by targeting with 3′-UTR of its mRNA. This led to the conclusion that Sal B-mediated improvement of blood-brain barrier dysfunction induced by high-glucose is related to the ROS/HIF-1α/VEGF and miR-200b/VEGF signaling pathways.