Hepatoprotective effect of Gan Kang Yuan against chronic liver injury induced by alcohol.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Gan Kang Yuan (GKY) is a compound medicine formulated on the basis of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). It was composed of Herba Cistanchis (Roucongrong), Radix Puerariae (Gegen), Radix Astragali (Huangqi), Fructus Schisandrae (Wuweizi) and Radix Glycyrrhizae (Gancao).

AIM: The purpose of this study is to research the hepatoprotective effect of GKY against liver injury induced by alcohol, and to elucidate the mechanism of hepatopretective effect.

MATERIALS AND

METHODS

Hepatoprotective activity of GKY was researched both in vivo and vitro. In vitro, effect of GKY on the survival rates of HepG2 cells were assessed. In vivo research, ICR mice were oral administrated with alcohol (Er Guo-tou white spirit, 56%, 6mL/kg, once per day) for 31 days to establish liver injury model. Meanwhile, positive group or experimental groups were treated with bicyclol (300mg/kg) or GKY (200, 600, 1800mg/kg). Serological indexes including aspartate and alanine transaminases (AST, ALT), γ-glutamyl transpeptidase (γ-GTP), total bilirubin (TBil), total cholesterol (TCHO) and serum triglyceride (STG) were estimated. Hepatic indicators including superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione S-transferase (GST), glutathione (GSH), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px), malondialdehyde (MDA), and liver triglyceride (LTG) were analyzed. Histopathologic changes of liver tissue were observed.

RESULTS

The survival rates of HepG2 cell were observably promoted by GKY. Alcoholic treatment drastically altered the serum indexes and liver indicators of model animals, while these alteration were significantly ameliorated by GKY (p < 0.05, 0.01 or 0.001) in experimental group. The microvesicular steatosis and necrosis in hepatic histopathology induced by alcoholic treatment also were notably attenuated by GKY administration.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings indicated that GKY possessed hepatoprotective property against liver injury induced by ethanol. GKY significantly promoted activities of relative enzymes and suppressed the contents of MDA and LTG, which might be the mechanism of hepatoprotective effect of GKY.