Hepatoprotective Effect of Kaempferol Against Alcoholic Liver Injury in Mice

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (02) ◽  
pp. 241-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meng Wang ◽  
Jianguo Sun ◽  
Zhihui Jiang ◽  
Wenyan Xie ◽  
Xiaoying Zhang

Kaempferol is a biologically active component present in various plants. The hepatoprotective effect of kaempferol in drug-induced liver injury has been proven, while its effect against alcoholic liver injury (ALI) remains unclear. Hence, the present study aimed to evaluate the effect of kaempferol against ALI in mice. The experimental ALI mice model was developed and the mice were treated with different doses of kaempferol for 4 weeks. The liver functions were observed by monitoring the following parameters: Aspartate aminotransferase (AST/GOT) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT/GPT) levels in serum; histopathological studies of liver tissue; oxidative stress by hydrogen peroxide ( H 2 O 2), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione (GSH); the lipid peroxidation status by malondialdehyde (MDA) and lipid accumulation by triglyceride (TG) level in serum; and the expression levels and activities of a key microsomal enzyme cytochrome 2E1 (CYP2E1), by both in vitro and in vivo methods. The ALI mice (untreated) showed clear symptoms of liver injury, such as significantly increased levels of oxidative stress, lipid peroxidation and excessive CYP2E1 expression and activity. The mice treated with different kaempferol dosages exhibited a significant decrease in the oxidative stress as well as lipid peroxidation, and increased anti-oxidative defense activity. The kaempferol treatment has significantly reduced the expression level and activity of hepatic CYP2E1, thus indicating that kaempferol could down regulate CYP2E1. These findings show the hepatoprotective properties of kaempferol against alcohol-induced liver injury by attenuating the activity and expression of CYP2E1 and by enhancing the protective role of anti-oxidative defense system.

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 1129-1140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huifen Wang ◽  
Yanli Zhang ◽  
Ruxue Bai ◽  
Miao Wang ◽  
Shiyu Du

Background/Aims: Lipid accumulation, inflammatory responses and oxidative stress have been implicated in the pathology of alcoholic liver disease (ALD). Targeting inhibition of these features may provide a promising therapeutic strategy for ALD. Baicalin, a flavonoid isolated from Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi, has been shown to exert a hepatoprotective effect. However, its effects on ALD remain obscure. This study was aimed to investigate the effects of baicalin on alcohol-induced liver injury and its related mechanisms. Methods: For in vivo experiments, rats were supplied intragastrical administration of alcohol continuously for 4 or 8 weeks, and then received baicalin treatment in the latter 4 weeks in the presence / absence of alcohol intake. Liver histology and function, inflammatory cytokines, oxidative mediators, and the components of the Sonic hedgehog pathway were evaluated. For in vitro experiments, alcohol-stimulated human normal liver cells LO2 were used. Results: Baicalin treatment significantly alleviated alcoholic liver injury, improved liver function impaired by alcohol, and inhibited hepatocytes apoptosis. In addition, baicalin decreased the expression levels of proinflammatory cytokines TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-6) and malonyldialdehyde (MDA), and increased the activities of antioxidant enzymes SOD and GSH-Px. Furthermore, baicalin modulated the activation of Sonic hedgehog (Shh) pathway. Administration of baicalin upregulated the expression of sonic hedgehog (Shh), patched (Ptc), Smoothened (Smo), and Glioblastoma-1(Gli-1). Blockade of the Shh pathway in cyclopamine abolished the effects of baicalin in vitro. Conclusion: Both in vivo and in vitro experimental results indicate that baicalin exerts hepatoprotective roles in alcohol-induced liver injury through inhibiting oxidative stress, inflammatory response, and the regulation of the Shh pathway.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Li Chen ◽  
Liu Liu ◽  
Rahima Abdulla ◽  
Xirali Tursun ◽  
Xuelei Xin ◽  
...  

Objective. To evaluate the hepatoprotective mechanism of Xwak granule (Xwak) in treatment of mice with alcoholic liver injury via activating ERK/NF-κB and Nrf/HO-1 signaling pathways. Methods. The chemical composition of Xwak was tested by liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (LC-MS). Herein, 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) scavenging assay and 2,2-azino-bis (3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulphonic acid (ABTS) radical tests were performed in vitro. The hepatoprotective effect of Xwak was assessed at different concentrations (1.5, 3, and 6 g/kg) in a mouse model of alcoholic liver injury. Results. Totally, 48 compounds, including 16 flavonoids, 8 tannins, 9 chlorogenic acids, and 15 other compounds, were identified from Xwak. Xwak showed to have a satisfactory antioxidant activity in vitro. In a group of Xwak-treated mice, the serum levels of alanine transaminase (ALT), aspartate transaminase (AST), and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) were decreased compared with a group of the mouse model of alcoholic liver injury. In addition, the levels of antioxidant enzymes, such as glutathione peroxidase (GSH-PX), total superoxide dismutase (T-SOD), and catalase (CAT), were noticeably increased and the levels of malondialdehyde (MDA), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β), and interleukin-6 (IL-6) were markedly reduced in the liver of mice. The state of oxidative stress in the mouse model of alcoholic liver injury was improved after treatment with Xwak. The improvement of inflammation-mediated disruption may conducive to the Xwak activity in the control of liver injury. The signals of p-ERK1/2, p-NF-κB, COX-2, iNOS, CYP2E1, Nrf, and HO-1 were significantly induced in the liver of mice after treatment with Xwak. Conclusions. The abovementioned findings indicated that the hepatoprotective mechanism of Xwak could be achieved by activating ERK/NF-κB and Nrf/HO-1 signaling pathways to alleviate oxidative stress and inflammatory.


Author(s):  
Yanshan Cao ◽  
Ahsan Bairam ◽  
Alison Jee ◽  
Ming Liu ◽  
Jack Uetrecht

Abstract Trimethoprim (TMP)-induced skin rash and liver injury are likely to involve the formation of reactive metabolites. Analogous to nevirapine-induced skin rash, one possible reactive metabolite is the sulfate conjugate of α-hydroxyTMP, a metabolite of TMP. We synthesized this sulfate and found that it reacts with proteins in vitro. We produced a TMP-antiserum and found covalent binding of TMP in the liver of TMP-treated rats. However, we found that α-hydroxyTMP is not a substrate for human sulfotransferases, and we did not detect covalent binding in the skin of TMP-treated rats. Although less reactive than the sulfate, α-hydroxyTMP was found to covalently bind to liver and skin proteins in vitro. Even though there was covalent binding to liver proteins, TMP did not cause liver injury in rats or in our impaired immune tolerance mouse model that has been able to unmask the ability of other drugs to cause immune-mediated liver injury. This is likely because there was much less covalent binding of TMP in the livers of TMP-treated mice than TMP-treated rats. It is possible that some patients have a sulfotransferase that can produce the reactive benzylic sulfate; however, α-hydroxyTMP, itself, has sufficient reactivity to covalently bind to proteins in the skin and may be responsible for TMP-induced skin rash. Interspecies and interindividual differences in TMP metabolism may be one factor that determines the risk of TMP-induced skin rash. This study provides important data required to understand the mechanism of TMP-induced skin rash and drug-induced skin rash in general.


2021 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 205873842110314
Author(s):  
Fei Zeng ◽  
Jierong Luo ◽  
Hong Han ◽  
Wenjie Xie ◽  
Lingzhi Wang ◽  
...  

Hyperglycemia-induced oxidative stress plays important roles in the development of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), which is a common complication in diabetic patients. The Nrf2-Keap1 pathway is important for cell antioxidant protection, while its role in exogenous antioxidant mediated protection against NAFLD is unclear. We thus, postulated that antioxidant treatment with allopurinol (ALP) may attenuate diabetic liver injury and explored the underlying mechanisms. Control (C) and streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetes rats (D) were untreated or treated with ALP for 4 weeks starting at 1 week after diabetes induction. Serum levels of alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate transaminase (AST), production of lipid peroxidation product malondialdehyde (MDA), and serum superoxide dismutase (SOD) were detected. Liver protein expressions of cleaved-caspase 3, IL-1β, nuclear factor-erythroid-2-related factor-2 (Nrf2), heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1), P62, Kelch-like ECH-associated protein 1 (Keap1), and LC3 were analyzed. In vitro, cultured rat normal hepatocytes BRL-3A were grouped to normal glucose (5.5 mM, NG) or high glucose (25 mM, HG) and treated with or without allopurinol (100 µM) for 48 h. Rats in the D group demonstrated liver injury evidenced as increased serum levels of ALT and AST. Diabetes increased apoptotic cell death, enhanced liver protein expressions of cleaved-caspase 3 and IL-1β with concomitantly increased production of MDA while serum SOD content was significantly reduced (all P < 0.05 vs C). In the meantime, protein levels of Nrf2, HO-1, and P62 were reduced while Keap1 and LC3 were increased in the untreated D group as compared to control ( P < 0.05 vs C). And all the above alterations were significantly attenuated by ALP. Similar to our findings obtained from in vivo study, we got the same results in in vitro experiments. It is concluded that ALP activates the Nrf2/p62 pathway to ameliorate oxidative stress and liver injury in diabetic rats.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 63-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danyel Jennen ◽  
Jan Polman ◽  
Mark Bessem ◽  
Maarten Coonen ◽  
Joost van Delft ◽  
...  

2001 ◽  
Vol 281 (6) ◽  
pp. G1348-G1356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amin A. Nanji ◽  
Kalle Jokelainen ◽  
Maryam Fotouhinia ◽  
Amir Rahemtulla ◽  
Peter Thomas ◽  
...  

Alcoholic liver injury is more severe and rapidly developing in women than men. To evaluate the reason(s) for these gender-related differences, we determined whether pathogenic mechanisms important in alcoholic liver injury in male rats were further upregulated in female rats. Male and age-matched female rats (7/group) were fed ethanol and a diet containing fish oil for 4 wk by intragastric infusion. Dextrose isocalorically replaced ethanol in control rats. We analyzed liver histopathology, lipid peroxidation, cytochrome P-450 (CYP)2E1 activity, nonheme iron, endotoxin, nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) activation, and mRNA levels of cyclooxygenase-1 (COX-1) and COX-2, tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), monocyte chemotactic protein-1 (MCP-1), and macrophage inflammatory protein-2 (MIP-2). Alcohol-induced liver injury was more severe in female vs. male rats. Female rats had higher endotoxin, lipid peroxidation, and nonheme iron levels and increased NF-κB activation and upregulation of the chemokines MCP-1 and MIP-2. CYP2E1 activity and TNF-α and COX-2 levels were similar in male and female rats. Remarkably, female rats fed fish oil and dextrose also showed necrosis and inflammation. Our findings in ethanol-fed rats suggest that increased endotoxemia and lipid peroxidation in females stimulate NF-κB activation and chemokine production, enhancing liver injury. TNF-α and COX-2 upregulation are probably important in causing liver injury but do not explain gender-related differences.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayan Biswas ◽  
Suman Santra ◽  
Debasree Bishnu ◽  
Gopal Krishna Dhali ◽  
Abhijit Chowdhury ◽  
...  

Background & Aims. Chronic hepatitis (CH) has emerged as a distinct outcome of drug-induced liver injury (DILI). Combination therapy of Isoniazid (INH) and Rifampicin (RMP) which is widely used for prolonged periods can cause acute hepatotoxicity and has been also incriminated in chronic DILI. We sought evidence of the production of hepatic fibrosis on long-term INH-RMP treatment through experiments in BALB/c mice exposed to INH-RMP. Methods. A combined dose of INH (50 mg) and RMP (100 mg) per kg body weight per day was administered to mice by oral gavage, 6 days a week, for 4 to 24 weeks for the assessment of liver injury, oxidative stress, and development of hepatic fibrosis, including demonstration of changes in key fibrogenesis linked pathways and mediators. Results. Progressive increase in markers of hepatic stellate cell (HSC) activation associated with changes in matrix turnover was observed between 12 and 24 weeks of INH-RMP treatment along with the elevation of liver collagen content and significant periportal fibrosis. These were associated with concurrent apoptosis of the hepatocytes, increase in hepatic cytochrome P450 2E1 (CYP2E1), NADPH oxidase (NOX) activity, and development of hepatic oxidative stress. Conclusions. INH-RMP can activate HSC through generation of NOX-mediated oxidative stress, leading to the development of liver fibrosis.


Author(s):  
Robert Ancuceanu ◽  
Marilena Viorica Hovanet ◽  
Adriana Iuliana Anghel ◽  
Florentina Furtunescu ◽  
Monica Neagu ◽  
...  

Drug induced liver injury (DILI) remains one of the challenges in the safety profile of both authorized drugs and candidate drugs and predicting hepatotoxicity from the chemical structure of a substance remains a challenge worth pursuing, being also coherent with the current tendency for replacing non-clinical tests with in vitro or in silico alternatives. In 2016 a group of researchers from FDA published an improved annotated list of drugs with respect to their DILI risk, constituting &ldquo;the largest reference drug list ranked by the risk for developing drug-induced liver injury in humans&rdquo;, DILIrank. This paper is one of the few attempting to predict liver toxicity using the DILIrank dataset. Molecular descriptors were computed with the Dragon 7.0 software, and a variety of feature selection and machine learning algorithms were implemented in the R computing environment. Nested (double) cross-validation was used to externally validate the models selected. A number of 78 models with reasonable performance have been selected and stacked through several approaches, including the building of multiple meta-models. The performance of the stacked models was slightly superior to other models published. The models were applied in a virtual screening exercise on over 100,000 compounds from the ZINC database and about 20% of them were predicted to be non-hepatotoxic.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhang-He Goh ◽  
Jie Kai Tee ◽  
Han Kiat Ho

AbstractTuberculosis remains a significant infectious lung disease that affects millions of patients worldwide. Despite numerous existing drug regimens for tuberculosis, Drug-Induced Liver Injury is a major challenge that limits the effectiveness of these therapeutics. Two drugs that form the backbone of the commonly administered quadruple antitubercular regimen, i.e. pyrazinamide (PZA) and isoniazid (INH), are associated with such hepatotoxicity. The problem is compounded by the lack of safe and effective alternatives to the antitubercular regimen. Consequently, current research largely focuses on exploiting the hepatoprotective effect of nutraceutical compounds as complementary therapy. Silibinin, a herbal product widely believed to protect against various liver diseases, potentially provides a useful solution given its hepatoprotective mechanisms. In our study, we identified silibinin’s role in mitigating PZA- and INH-induced hepatotoxicity and elucidated a deeper mechanistic understanding of silibinin’s hepatoprotective ability. 25 μM silibinin preserved the viability of human foetal hepatocyte line LO2 when co-administered with 80 mM INH and decreased apoptosis induced by a combination of 40 mM INH and 10 mM PZA by reducing oxidative damage to mitochondria, proteins, and lipids. Taken together, this proof-of-concept forms the rational basis for the further investigation of silibinin’s hepatoprotective effect in subsequent preclinical studies and clinical trials.Graphical Abstract


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document