Study On The Gastrointestinal Motility Of Starfish Alcohol Extract And Its Mechanism

Asterias, also named Starfish, is the most common Echinodermata in seashore. Starfish contains different types of bioactive materials,such as proteins, enzymes,steroidal glycosides, gangliosides,alkaloids etc. The extracts of the starfish show a variety of pharmacological activities. Many complex prescriptions for treatment of stomach ailment, which use Asterias as the main drug, have obvious effects on increasing the gastrointestinal motility. The present study investigated whether the 60% and 70% ethanol sediments extract (HX) of Asterias had dual-directional regulating effects on gastrointestinal motility and observed the mechanism of promoting the gastrointestinal motility,of HX by detecting the content of motilin(MTL) and gastrin(GAS) in adrenaline model rats. The protective effect of HX on gastrointestinal dysmotility caused by some kinds of diseases.in mice was also evaluated.The results showed that HX (2%,4%) antagnized the inhibition of movement ability in isolated instesine of rabbits. HX (1.3g/kg, p.o, 6days.) significantly antagonized the gastric emptying inhibition induced by adrenaline and HX (1.3, 2.6g/kg, p.o, 6days.) antagonized the intestinal propulsion inhibition induced by adrenaline in mice. HX(1.3g/kg) also antagonized cisapride-induced gastric emptying stimulation in mice and HX (1.3,3.9g/kg) antagonized the intestinal propulsion of cisapride model mice. HX did not antagonize histamine-induced gastric emptying stimulation in mice and HX and histamine did not infulence the intestinal propulsion in mice. Moveover, HX had no markedly effects on the content of blood MTL and GAS in rats. These results suggested that HX had dual-directional regulating effects on gastrointestinal motility and the effect might be mediated by adrenergic receptor and 5-HT receptor.HX (1.3, 2.6,3.9g/kg, p.o. 6 days) markedly antagonized the gastric emptying and the intestinal propulsive inhibition in diabetic gastroparesis mice. HX (1.3, 2.6g/kg, p.o. 6 days) markedly antagonized the gastric emptying and the intestinal propulsive inhibition in depression model mice by reserpine. Moveover, HX(1.3g/kg, p.o.) markedly antagonized the gastric emptying and the intestinal propulsive inhibition in stress model mice.In conclusion, the present study concluded that HX had significant dual-directional regulatory effect on gastrointestinal motility and can improve the symptoms in some kinds of diseases-induced gastrointestinal dysmotility. The study of this paper established the pharmacology foundation of HX as a potential new gastrointestinal dynamic agent for the clinical applications.