Naringenin protects ischemia-reperfusion-induced acute kidney injury by nuclear factor κB / 中华肾脏病杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To explore the effect and involved mechanism of naringenin on acute kidney injury (AKI) induced by ischemia-reperfusion (IR).Methods:The IR-AKI rat model was constructed using the classic bilateral renal pedicle clamping method, then renal function and pathological change were assessed, as well as inflammation-associated genes were detected by quantitative real-time PCR. The hub genes were selected through differential gene analysis and protein-protein interaction network analysis, and their transcription factors were predicted, which constructed a protein library together. The proteins binding to naringenin were selected by reverse molecular docking analysis and further their binding patterns were predicted to explore the mechanism of naringenin. Finally, the results of bioinformatics were verified by experimental methods.Results:Compared with the AKI group, the kidney pathology of the rats in the naringenin pretreatment group was significantly improved, and the renal tubular injury score was reduced ( P<0.01); meanwhile the serum creatinine level and the mRNA expression of the kidney injury molecule 1 (KIM-1) were significantly decreased (both P<0.05). Compared to sham group, IR-AKI increased the level of nuclear factor κB (NF-κB), tumor necrosis factor-α and interleukin-1β (all P<0.05), which reversed by naringenin indicated that naringenin inhibited inflammation in IR-AKI. Differential gene analysis was performed on the GSE98622 data set, and 359 differential genes were obtained. In reverse molecular docking, the proteins with smallest binding energy including NFKBIA, BCL3, NFKB2 and RELA were considered to be related to the preventive effect of naringenin, which were mainly enriched in NF-κB-related inflammation pathways. Domain functional analysis of NF-κB-related genes showed that naringenin could stably bind to its key domain. According to quantitative real-time PCR results, naringenin increased BCL3 level after AKI ( P<0.05), and further decreased the expression level of RELA and NFKB2 (both P<0.05). Conclusion:Naringenin protects IR-AKI by alleviating inflammation, and its mechanism is related to increasing BCL3 and thereby inhibiting the NF-κB pathway.