The Study On Pathogenesis Of Smoking-induced Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease And Interfering Role Of Chinese Herbs 814

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a slowly progressive airway and pulmonary destructive inflammation, including chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Smoking is overwhelming the major cause of COPD. The protease-antiprotease imbalance is still the prevailing theory, but the oxidant-antioxidant hypothesis is being paid attention to now. Chronic airway obstruction is also a characteristic change of COPD in which transforming growth factor-β₁(TGF-β₁) has important role. There are not ideal drugs to prevent and treat emphysema and airway remodeling inland and outland up to now.Chinese herbs 814 can decrease pulmonary hypertension induced by hypoxia, improve circulation of heart and pulmonary, inhibit inflammation and antibacterial in other studies of our laboratory. It is indicated 814 can prevent and treat elastase-induced hamster emphysema, with the mechanism of inhibiting inflammatory factors released by alveolar macrophages and improving the function of alveolar type II epithelial cells. This study aimed to observed the effect of 814 on pulmonary tissue structure,NO releasing, ability of antioxidizing and expression of TGF-β₁ by developing the smoking-induced COPD in hamsters..The main experimental procedures were as followed:1. Development of COPD animal model by smoke inhalation and observation of the preventive and therapeutic effect of 814In order to develop the smoking-induced COPD animal model, male Syrian hamsters of 2 month old were intoxicated 10 cigarettes a day for 3 months. Building normal group (N), 814 preventive and therapeutic group (P), 814 therapeutic groups (for 1 month and 3 months, ST1 and ST3) and spontaneous recovery groups (for 1 month and 3 months, SR1 and SR3). The experimental results were as followed: number of macrophages (NMC) recovered from bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BAL), circulating endothelial cells in blood (CEC) and pulmonary volume(PV)increased in smoking group in comparison with normal group (p<0.05 or p<0.01). By measuring pulmonary mean linear intercept (MLI),mean alveolar numbers (MAN),pulmonary alveolar area (PAA) and bronchiolar wall thickness (BT) under light microscopy we found there were obvious emphysematous changes and bronchiolar wall thickening in smoking group. Under transmission electron microscopy there were pathologic changes in lung and heart. By preventing and treating with 814, NMC,CEC and emphysematous changes had obvious difference with smoking group (p<0.05 or p<0.01). However, spontaneous recovery groups had no differences with smoking group in above-mentioned indices except NMC and CEC. It was indicated that smoking-induced COPD animal model was developed successfully. Chinese herbs 814 could alleviate pulmonary inflammation, bronchiolar narrowness and airway obstruction, protect pulmonary tissue and endothelia against smoke. In conclusion,...