Effect of ginseng, ginsenoside Rg1 and prednisolone on aristolochic acid induced nephropathy in inbred mice

• Main Authors: Yu-Fan Cheng, 鄭郁凡
• Other Authors: 陳世銘
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/36757334484749717754

碩士 === 臺北醫學大學 === 藥學研究所 === 96 === Aristolochic acid (AA) has been demonstrated to play an important role in aristolochic acid nephropathy (AAN). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the therapeutic effect of ginseng extract (GE) or its active component ginsenoside Rg1 (GS), combined with prednisolone on AAN. AA was dissolved in distilled water as drinking water to C3H/HE mice (6 week-old male) for 56 days. The treatment groups in phase one were administered with GE 250mg/kg, prednisolone 2mg/kg, and both GE and prednisolone orally for 14 days. In phase two, under the same process, GE was replaced by GS. The control group was administered with distilled water and the normal group was only administered with distilled water throughout the experiment. Urine protein, urine N-acetyl-beta-D-glucosaminidase (NAG), blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and serum creatinine were determined to evaluate renal function. Renal tissues were served to histological examination (PAS stain and immunofluorescence). The antibodies, including TGF-β (transforming growth factor-β), MMP-9 (matrix metalloproteinase-9), HGF (hepatocyte growth factor), were chosen to recognize the specific antigens in injury sites.Compared with the control group, urine protein, NAG, BUN and serum creatinine were decreased at different level in all treatment groups. In the histological examination, we observed the alleviation in all treatment groups. The fluorescence dots of TGF-β were significantly decreased and MMP-9, HGF were significantly increased in experimental groups. Based on our result, both GE and GS combined with prednisolone has the superior effect among the concomitance groups. Our findings demonstrated that GE and GS are structure analogs of prednisolone and they have anti-inflammatory properties to slow down the fibrosis process and repair the renal injury.