| ObjectiveWomen in the menopausal transition or due to reasons such as surgery, resulting in a decline in ovarian function gradually, serum estrogen levels are low, will cause a series of endocrine disorder symptoms. Perimenopausal syndrome is generic terms of symptoms including dizziness tinnitus, hot flashes, night sweats, memory loss, decreased libido, palpitations restlessness, etc.With the development of society and population ageing phenomenon becoming more severe, happiness and harmony of the family are affected by the health of middle-aged and old women, thus perimenopausal syndrome becomes the focus of social attention. In recently, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is the most used method in clinical practice. However, the long-term using hormone may increase the risk of breast cancer, cervical cancer and ovarian cancer, so people began to seek for the non-hormone drugs to relieve menopausal symptoms. Treatment of perimenopausal syndrome with Traditional Chinese Medicine has the a good many advantage, such as, low side effect, the overall system adjustment, and easy to delivered by patients, which is becoming a hot spot of current research.In our country, fructus ligustri lucidi is used as medicine has 2,000 years of records with a extremly high value. With the progress of pharmacology research, fructus ligustri lucidi has been widely used in treatment with hyperlipidemia, atherosclerosis, diabetes and perimenopausal syndrome. In recent years, more and more studies have showed that fructus ligustri lucidi could obviously improve the symptoms of osteoporosis of perimenopausal women. Our previous studies have showed that fructus ligustri lucidi could markedly evalute the bone mineral density of ovarian rats, and improve structure and biomechanics of bone. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of fructus ligustri lucidi on hormones secreted by pituitary gonadal axis and the expression of estrogen in uterus and bone tissue of ovariectomized rat.MethodsOvariectomized rats were adopted as the animal model of perimenopausal syndrome. Rats were randomly divided into control group, model group, estrogen and fructus ligustri lucidi group. One week after operation model, fructus ligustri lucidi group were fed in accordance with the content of 3.5 g/kg dosage for 12 weeks, and positive control group was treated with pentanoic acid estrogen. The following indicators were determined:1. Effects on the hormone level secreted by pituitary gonadal axis.Ulterlized the radioimmunoassay to determine the E2, LH and FSH level in serum of each group2. Effects on the viscera index and thickness of endometrium of uterus tissue in ovariectomized rats.Weighed wet weight of uterus, and calculated each viscera index of uterus in rats. HE staining was performed after uterus tissue biopsies and photographed under microscope, then image analysis was used to measure the endometrial thickness.3. Effects on ERa and ER? in uterus and bone tissues of Ovariectomized rat.Immunohistochemical and Western Blot method to determine ERa and ER? in uterus and bone tissues of Ovariectomized rat, respectively.Results1. Compared with the model group, E2 and FSH level in serum of Fructus ligustri lucidi group had no significant difference (p> 0.05), but LH decreased significantly (p< 0.05).2. Uterus viscera index of fructus ligustri lucidi compared with the model group had no significant difference (p> 0.05), which showed that fructus ligustri lucidi hold no promoting effect to ovarian uterus of rats.3. There was no significant difference with ERa expression in rat uterus tissue of fructus ligustri lucidi group compared with model group (p> 0.05), however, the expression of ER|3 had a significant increase (p< 0.05).4. There was no significant difference with ER? expression in rat bone tissue of fructus ligustri lucidi group compared with model group (p> 0.05), however, the expression of ERa had a significant increase (p< 0.05).Conclusions1. fructus ligustri lucidi had no obvious effect to hormone level in serum of ovariectomized rats, but could effectively reduce the LH increse caused by ovarian resection. Due to this effect did not depend on serum E2 levels caused by negative feedback mechanism, so we speculated that it could be achieved by regulating certain nerve centre of hypothalamus-pituitary.2. Fructus ligustri lucidi did not induce a significant weight gain in ovarian uterus of rats, and had no significantly affect on the thickness of the lining of the uterus. Thus, it may not cause the phenomenon of endometrial hyperplasia.3. On the one hand, Fructus ligustri lucidi could selectivity increase the expression of ER?,but have no obvious effect on ERa in the uterus tissue, on the other hand, may selectivity increase the expression of ERa and have no obvious effect on ER? in the bone tissue. So fructus ligustri lucidi may be a selective estrogen receptor modulators, which is the basis of molecular mechanisms that Fructus ligustri lucidi could effectively improve perimenopausal symptoms of osteoporosis and no uterus weight effect. |
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