Regulatory effects of total triterpenoid of Prunella vulgarisL. on activities of ERK and TGF-β1/Smad signaling pathway in protecting hepatic fibrosis in rats / 中国药理学通报

ABSTRACT

Aim To investigate the protective effects of total triterpenoid from Prunella vulgaris L. ( TTP) on CCl4-induced hepatic fibrosis in rats and its mecha-nism. Methods Rat liver fibrosis was induced by 50% CCl4 twice a week for 12 weeks. From the 5th week, all the therapeutic groups were treated with the TTP(25, 50, 100 mg·kg-1 ) and the colchicine (0. 1 mg· kg-1 ) respectively once a day for 8 weeks. At the end of the twelfth week, the levels of ALT, AST, HA, PCⅢ, CⅣ, MDA, SOD, GSH-Px, Hyp were measured . HE and Masson staining were used to evalu-late the degree of hepatic fibrosis. The mRNA expres-sion ofα-SMA, procollagen I, Smad2, Smad3, Smad7 in liver was detected by RT-PCR, and the p-ERK pro-tein expression was evaluated by Western blot. Results Compared with the model group, TTP(25, 50, 100 mg·kg-1 ) not only reduced serum content of ALT, AST, HA, PCⅢ, CⅣand Hyp, MDA in liver tissue, improved the morphologic changes of hepatic fibrosis, but also increased SOD and GSH-Px activity. Moreo-ver, it decreased the α-SMA, procollagen I, Smad2, Smad3 mRNA expression and increased Smad7 mRNA expression in liver tissues obviously. Furthermore, TTP reduced the protein expression of p-ERK. Conclusions TTP can protect rats from CCl4-induced liver fibro-sis. The mechanism of this process may involve inhibi-ting the expression of p-ERK and interference with TGF-β1/Smad signal transduction pathway.