Bicyclol attenuates tetracycline-induced fatty liver associated with inhibition of hepatic ER stress and apoptosis in mice.

Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress is known to be involved in the development of several metabolic disorders, including non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Tetracycline can cause hepatic steatosis, and ER stress may be involved in tetracycline-induced fatty liver. Our previous study showed that bicyclol has been proven to protect against tetracycline-induced fatty liver in mice, and ER stress may also be involved in bicyclol's hepatoprotective effect. Therefore, this study was performed to investigate the underlying mechanisms associated with ER stress and apoptosis, by which bicyclol attenuated tetracycline-induced fatty liver in mice. Bicyclol (300 mg/kg) was given to mice by gavage 3 times. Tetracycline (200 mg/kg, intraperitoneally) was injected at 1 h after the last dose of bicyclol. At 6 h and 24 h after single dose of tetracycline injection, serum ALT, AST, TG, CHO and hepatic histopathological examinations were performed to evaluate liver injuries. Hepatic steatosis was assessed by the accumulation of hepatic TG and CHO. Moreover, hepatic apoptosis and ER stress related markers were determined by TUNEL, real-time PCR, and western blot. As a result, bicyclol significantly protected against tetracycline-induced fatty liver as evidenced by the decrease of elevated serum transaminases and hepatic triglyceride, and the attenuation of histopathological changes in mice. In addition, bicyclol remarkably alleviated hepatic apoptosis and the gene expression of caspase-3, and increased the gene expression of XIAP. The gene expressions of ER stress-related markers, including CHOP, GRP78, IRE-1α, and ATF6, which were downregulated by bicyclol pretreatment in tetracycline-injected mice. These results suggested that bicyclol protected tetracycline-induced fatty liver partly due to its ability of anti-apoptosis associated with ER stress.

Identification of ALK5 inhibitor via structure-based virtual screening and ADMET prediction.

TGF-ß plays a critical role in the initiation and progression of fibrosis in various organ systems such as kidney, heart, lung and liver. TGF-ß and its receptors (ALK5 and TßR II) are able to control the cellular growth and promote several biological responses. To date, many pharmaceutical companies have employed virtual screening to identify potent inhibitors against ALK5. Nevertheless, none of these studies had involved the in silico ADMET evaluation and Raccoon filtering. In our experiment, all 57423 molecules were downloaded from TCM database and were filtered and converted to PDBQT formats by Raccoon software. Then 24 189 structures were run through AutoDock Vina in PyRx 0.8, 164 molecules were selected and further evaluated by ADMET Predictor 6.5, and 56 structures were selected and docked by Glide 6.2. Finally, the top 10 hits were identified as promising oral ALK5 inhibitors according to their Glide scores. The Glide scores of the best two compounds, 40686 and 33534, were -10.75 and -10.30 kcal/mol, respectively. This research provides a set of combined and detailed virtual screening protocol and is helpful for explaining the mechanism of receptor-ligand interactions.

Optical properties of a tetradentate bis(beta-diketonate) europium(III) complex.

Eu2(BPOPB)3H2O, an europium complex chelated with bis(beta-diketone), was synthesized. Its properties have been investigated by absorption spectrum, emission spectrum and luminescence lifetime measurement. The complex displays strong red luminescence upon irradiation at the ligand band around 355 nm, which indicates that the bis-beta-diketonate ligand BPOPB is an efficient sensitizer. The Judd-Ofelt parameters obtained from the emission spectrum of Eu2(BPOPB)3H2O have been used to calculate the total spontaneous emission probabilities (A), the radiative lifetime (tau(rad)), the fluorescence branching ratio (beta) and the stimulated emission cross-sections (sigma). The luminescence lifetimes are determined to be 402 and 169 micros for Eu2(BPOPB)3H2O and Eu(DBM)3(H2O)2, respectively. The relationship between the structures of rare-earth complexes and luminescence lifetimes was analyzed. The radiative properties reveal that Eu2(BPOPB)3H2O is potential to be an efficient luminescent material.