Evaluation of the Treatment Effect of Aloe vera Fermentation in Burn Injury Healing Using a Rat Model.

Burn injury is a growing medical problem associated with public health, and few effective agents are available for treatment of this disease. In the present study, a burn injury rat model was developed and the accelerated effect of Aloe vera fermentation on burn injury healing was evaluated. Our results indicated that Aloe vera fermentation could markedly reduce the DPPH (56.12%), O2·- (93.5%), ·OH (76.12%), Fe2+ chelation (82%), and oxygen-reduction activity (0.28 µg/ml) and significantly inhibited the growth of pathogens S. typhimurium ATCC 13311 (inhibition zone diameter: 14 mm), S. enteritidis ATCC13076 (IZD: 13 mm), S. flexneri ATCC 12022 (IZD: 18 mm), E. coli 44102 (IZD: 10 mm), L. monocytogenes ATCC 19111 (IZD: 18 mm), S. dysenteriae 301 (IZD: 20 mm), S. aureus COWAN1 (IZD: 19 mm), and P. acnes ATCC 11827 (IZD: 25 mm) in vitro. The in vivo results indicated that Aloe vera fermentation produced more eosinophils and fibroblasts and less vessel proliferation compared with the model group on the 14th day, which had greatly accelerated burn injury healing via shedding of the scab and promoting hair growth. ELISA results indicated that Aloe vera fermentation had significantly reduced the production of proinflammatory factors TNF-α and IL-1ß (p < 0.05) and greatly enhanced the yield of anti-inflammatory factor IL-4 in animal serum (p < 0.05). In addition, the high-throughput sequencing results indicated that Aloe vera fermentation obviously increased the percentage of Firmicutes (65.86% vs. 49.76%), while reducing the number of Bacteroidetes (27.60% vs. 45.15%) compared with the M group at the phylum level. At the genus level, Aloe vera fermentation increased the probiotic bacteria Lactobacillus (3.13% vs. 2.09%) and reduced the pathogens Prevotella (10.60% vs.18.24%) and Blautia (2.91% vs. 16.41%) compared with the M group. Therefore, we concluded that the use of Aloe vera fermentation significantly accelerates burn injury healing via reduction of the severity of inflammation and through modification of gut microbiota.

Reclamation of Herb Residues Using Probiotics and Their Therapeutic Effect on Diarrhea.

Residues from herbal medicine processing in pharmaceutical plants create a large amount of waste (herb residues), which consists mainly of environmental pollution and medicinal waste. In order to resolve this problem, probiotics of Bacillus (B.) subtilis, Aspergillus (A.) oryzae, and Lactobacillus (L.) plantarum M3 are selected to reuse herb residue of Jianweixiaoshi tablets (JT), and an antibiotic-associated diarrhea (AAD) mouse model was established to evaluate the therapeutic effects of the herb residue fermentation supernatant. Our results indicated that the fermentation supernatant had scavenged 77.8% of 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), 78% of O2•-, 36.7% of •OH, 39% of Fe2+ chelation, and 716 mg/L reducing power. The inhibition zones for Salmonella (S.) typhimurium, S. enteritidis, Shigella (Sh.) flexneri, Escherichia (E.) coli, Listeria (L.) monocytogenes, Sh. dysenteriae 301, and Staphylococcus (S.) aureus were 17, 14, 19, 18, 20, 19, and 20 mm, respectively. The in vivo results indicated that the fermentation supernatant resulted in a high diarrhea inhibition rate (56%, p < 0.05), greatly enhanced the disruption of bacterial diversity caused by antibiotics, and restored the dominant position of L. johnsonii in the treatment and recovery stages. Therefore, the combination of the herb residue and probiotics suggests a potential to explore conversion of these materials for the possible development of therapies for AAD.