Application of proteomic and bioinformatic techniques for studying the hepatoprotective effect of dioscin against CCl₄-induced liver damage in mice.

In this study, the significant hepatoprotective effect of dioscin against CCl₄-induced acute liver damage in mice was first discovered, and the effect produced by dioscin at the dose of 100 mg/kg was equal to the action produced by silymarin at the dose of 200 mg/kg. Then, 1-dimension gel electrophoresis was used to separate the liver proteins, and five differentially expressed bands were selected. After in-gel digestion, 71 proteins were identified by nano-RP-HPLC-ESI-MS/MS/MS. Further network analysis suggested that the identified proteins formed a connected protein interaction subnetwork. Ten functional categories were selected to demonstrate the distribution of the proteins by Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment analysis. Six of the proteins, heat shock protein 5 (HSPA5), annexin 6 (ANXA6), isovaleryl-CoA dehydrogenase (IVD), ribosomal protein S6 (RPS6), cytoglobin (Cygb), and nucleoside diphosphate kinase A (NDPK-A), were validated by Western blotting assay. They might be involved in the hepatoprotective effect of dioscin, and their investigation could be useful, together with the determination of serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) levels, as well as the liver histopathologic study, for the elucidation of the action mechanisms of dioscin against CCl₄-induced liver injury. Our work shows that the validated proteins should be considered as biomarkers for the investigation of acute liver injury, and its results should contribute to the therapy of liver damage by dioscin in the future.