In vitro study on anti-HBV effects and mechanism of hypericin / 重庆医学

ABSTRACT

Objective To evaluate the anti-HBV effect of hypericin from the cellular level and to preliminarily explore its po-tential drug target point.Methods Liver cell line HepG2.2.15 cells secreting HBV particles were selected as the experimental ob-jects.Hypericin served as the HY group,lamivudine was taken as 3TC group and deionized water as the blank control group.The cells were grouped and administrated.The HBV-DNA copy level was measured at72 h after medication by Southern blot and fluo-rescent quantitative PCR;the inhibition rate of HBsAg and HBeAg was detected by using ELISA assay;the pgRNA expression level was tested by using Northern blot and fluorescent quantitative PCR;Western blot and fluorescent quantitative PCR were adopted to detect the expression of regulatory factors including HNF3β,HNF4α,PPARαand RXRα.Results Compared to the blank control group,both hypericin and lamivudine had significant inhibiting effect on HBV DNA and expression level of HBsAg and HBeAg in HepG2.2.15 cells (P <0.05).Hypericin could significantly decrease the pgRNA expression compared with the blank control group (P <0.05),while lamivudine had no obvious change (P <0.05).Moreover,hypericin exhibited significant effects on the expression of HNF3βand regulatory factor HNF4αcompared with the blank control group and 3TC group(P <0.05).Conclusion Hypericin represents a strong anti-HBV effect,moreover could increase the negative regulatory factor HNF3βn expression and decreases the positive factor HNF4αexpression,prompting that its drug target point could be pgRNA.