Hepatoprotective Effect And Antioxidative Mechanism Of Chaihu Yugan Decoction On D-galactosamine-induced Liver Injury In Rats

Objectives:To investigate the therapeutic effect of Chaihu Yugan Tang/Decoction in rats with D-Galactosamine (D-Galn) induced liver injury and to explore the possible anti-oxidation mechanism related with its hepatoprotective effects.Methods:Sixty female SD rats were randomized into six groups with 10 in each group, namely, control group, model group, bifendate group, low-dose group, middle-dose group and high-dose group. Intraperitoneal injection of D-Galn at a dose of 600mg/kg was administered to the rats except those in the control group to induce acute liver injury. Medications were given orally to each treatment group at the same time, of which the daily dose of Bifendate is 4.5mg/kg, and dosage of the three herbal groups was 11.8g/kg,23.6g/kg and 47g/kg respectively. All the medications were given at a volume of 10ml/kg, twice a day for two days.48 hours later, all the rats were sacrificed with their plasma ALT, AST, TB, MDA and SOD being examined. Paraffin sections of the right lobe were stained with the routine hematoxylin-eosin method and their pathological changes were examined under light microscopy.Results:Chaihu Yugan Decoction of the three dosage group exhibited significant (P<0.05) curative effects by normalizing the levels of alanine amino transferase (ALT), aspartate amino transferase (AST) and total bilirubin (TB) which were significantly (P<0.05) increased in rats by treatment with 600 mg/kg D-Galn. Bifendate (4.5 mg/kg), a known hepatoprotective drug used for comparison exhibited significant curative effect in terms of ALT, AST and TB (P<0.05). Pathologic changes from the HE sections suggested that size of fatty degeneration, hydropic degeneration and focal necrosis in the model group was much larger than that of the treatment group in which the high dose group and Bifendate group exhibited the best protective effects. In terms of plasma antioxidants concentration, MDA levels increased and SOD levels decreased significantly in the model group compared to that of normal group (P<0.05) whereas MDA levels decreased in treatment groups compared to that of model group and SOD levels increased in the low-dose herbal treatment group statistically(P<0.05).Conclusions:Chaihu Yugan Decoction could lower down the elevated plasma ALT, AST and TB levels in D-Galn-induced hepatotoxic rats and decrease the size of degeneration and necrosis in the liver due to D-Galn hepatotoxicity, indicating its prominent curative effects. The protective effect is most obvious in high-dose herbal group with no statistical difference to that of Bifendate, a known hepatic protective agent. The mechanism is thought to be related with its anti-oxidative function as is shown through the results of plasma MDA and SOD.