The Study Of The Ursolic Acids’ S Protection Effect On The Mouse Liver Damage Induced By CCl₄

Ursolic acid(UA) is a member of three pentacylic triterpenoids. Studies show that ursolic acid has many unique pharmacology activities, such as anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, anti-diabetic and so on.Pregnane X receptor(PXR) is a nuclear receptor transcription factor that is activated by many endobiotics and xenobiotics. The activated PXR modulates the transcription of genes in hepatocytes associated with endobiotic and xenobiotic uptake, metabolism and excretion.Early researches in our laboratory showed that ursolic acid plays an important role in lipid-lowering and anti-fibrosis. And ursolic acid could protect the membrane of liver cells and organelles help the active transport functional recovery, make the intracellular and extracellular irons and water return to steady-state, restore the regeneration, promote the recovery of the necrotic liver cells. Recent research reports also pointed out that the activation of PXR could inhibit the proliferation of human liver myofibroblasts. 【Objectives】Ursolic acid were selected as the research object, and design of a series of experiments, study on ursolic acid whether can through the activation of PXR expression, and to resist the effects of liver fibrosis. 【Methods】In the experiment we used CCl4 to establish the liver damage model of mouse by intragastric administration, and studied the treatment effect and the protection effect of ursolic acid through mouse with different dosages and exchanges of feeding order of CCl4 and drug. Then we investigated the mouse liver’s damage level and restoration effect of each group through observation on mouse’s apparent shape, analysis of transaminase level in blood, comparin of liver’s anatomy shape, observation of the liver’s pathological section and specific gene expression level with RT-PCR.【Results】 The results showed that ursolic acid can obviously reduce mouse liver’s damage lever through repairing it effectively after being suffered with a dose-dependent maner. We alsodiscovered that ursolic acid increased the PXR’s and TGFβ’s expression level greatly and simultaneously decreased TNFα’s expression lever.【Conclusion】Ursolic acid has good effects on mice liver injury induced by CCl4, which lays a foundation for future treatment and prevention of liver injury.