Recent Development of Hydrogen Sulfide Therapeutics in the Treatment of Cardiovascular Diseases

Hydrogen sulfide (H2S), as one of the endogenous gasotransmitters, has shown great potential in treating cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). H2S plays a protective role in CVDs by removing reactive oxygen species (ROS), promoting vasodilation, inhibiting myocardial hypertrophy, preventing thrombosis, and protecting mitochondria. However, there still exist some problems for H2S as drugs such as challenging delivery, uncontrollable release rate, and other drug developability issues. Addressing these problems, the prodrug strategy shows great potential. Therefore, a key issue on the H2S-based therapeutics is developing appropriate H2S prodrugs. In this review, we mainly discussed the mechanism of H2S against CVDs and reviewed the cardiovascular effects of current H2S prodrugs.