ABSTRACT
Autoimmune liver disease is a refractory disease clinically, and there is no particularly effective drug at present. Therefore, it is of important clinical value to develop new effective intervention drugs for the prevention and treatment of autoimmune liver disease. In order to investigate the potential protective effect of artesunate (Art) on concanavalin A (Con A)-induced autoimmune liver injury, different doses of Art (27, 54, 108 mg·kg⁻¹) were orally administered to mice for consecutive 7 days, respectively. Then the Con A was injected into mice via tail vein to induce liver injury models. 8 h after modeling, the mice were sacrificed. The serum and liver tissue were collected for detecting the level of alanine aminotransferase (ALT), and aspartate transaminase (AST), liver pathological histopathology, inflammatory cytokines and nuclear factor (NF-κB) key protein expression level. The results showed that 108 mg·kg⁻¹ Art remarkably reduced Con A-induced liver indexes and serum transaminase levels (ALT and AST) as compared with model group(<0.01). Meanwhile, the liver histopathological changes were obviously alleviated with a significant decrease of pro-inflammatory cytokine including tumor necrosis factor (TNF-α), interferon (IFN-γ), interleukin (IL-6), IL-17 and a higher increase of anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10 (<0.01). Western blot results showed that 108 mg·kg⁻¹ Art markedly inhibited the expressions of p-p65 and p-IκBα proteins (<0.01). The specific inhibitor of NF-κB, pyrrolidinedithiocarbamate (PDTC) could also significantly inhibit the expressions of p-p65 and p-IκBα with and alleviate liver injuries. Therefore, our results indicated that Art may have a protective action against Con A-induced autoimmune liver injury mainly by suppressing NF-κB signal pathway in mice. The study provides scientific reference for artesunate usage in preventing autoimmune liver injury.
ABSTRACT
The difference of ingredients between the roots from the SP1 plants of Achyranthes Bidentata carried by satellite and the control's were evaluated in this study. The techniques of ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UVS), infrared spectroscopy (IR), Xray diffraction (XRD) and SDS-PAGE were used to analyse the chemical constituent in the root of A. bidentata. The results demonstrated that the UVS, IR, XRD and protein fingerprints of the roots from A. bidentata were distinct with special characters. The difference of the IR, XRD and protein fingerprints could be discriminated the satellite plants roots from those of the control, however, there were no difference of the UVS fingerprints between the satellite plants roots and the control. This indicated that the kinds of chemical ingredients were not different between the two groups, but the contents of some chemical ingredients deceased in SP1 plants of A. bidentata carried by satellite.