Hepatoprotective activity of isostrictiniin from Nymphaea candida on Con A-induced acute liver injury in mice

Abstract

This study is to investigate hepatoprotective activity of isostrictiniin from Nymphaea candida. Hepatic injury in mice was induced immunologically by caudal vein injecting Con A (20 mg/kg) on tenth day of isostrictiniin (25, 50, or 100 mg/kg) intragastric administration. The results demonstrated that pretreatment with isostrictiniin significantly and dose-dependently prevented increase of serum AST and ALT induced by Con A (P < 0.05). Isostrictiniin significantly reduced the levels of MDA and NO in the liver tissue and restored activities of antioxidant enzymes SOD and GSH compared with model group (P < 0.05). Furthermore, the increase of pro-inflammatory cytokines TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-6 and IL-18 levels were significantly suppressed by isostrictiniin pretreatment compared with model group (P < 0.05). Histopathological analysis showed that isostrictiniin attenuated the hepatocellular necrosis and reduction of inflammatory cells infiltration. The results indicates that preventive effect of isostrictiniin on acute liver injury may be attributed to its antioxidative and immunomodulatory activities.

Graphical Abstract

KEYWORDS:

• Nymphaea candida
• isostrictiniin
• hepatoprotective activity
• Concanavalin A

Disclosure statement

The authors have declared no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by grants from National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (81760631), the flexible talents project of Xinjiang in China (2015J) and the youth talent project of health commssion of Xinjiang in China (2013Y04).