Fuzheng Huayu recipe inhibits bleomycin-induced pulmonary fibrosis in rats by inhibiting M2 polarization of macrophages via the oxidative phosphorylation pathway

Abstract

Fuzheng Huayu recipe (FZHYR) is a Chinese patent medicine for the treatment of fibrosis. The effects of FZHYR on pulmonary fibrosis and macrophage polarization were investigated in vitro. FZHYR inhibited pulmonary inflammation and fibrosis and M2 polarization of macrophages in bleomycin-induced pulmonary fibrosis (BPF) of rat model. Differentially expressed genes were screened by high-throughput mRNA sequencing and GSEA showed that oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) was correlated with BPF. FZHYR inhibited expressions of Ndufa2 and Ndufa6 in lung tissues of BPF rats. These findings suggest that OXPHOS pathway serves as a possible target for pulmonary fibrosis therapy by FZHYR.

Keywords:

• pulmonary fibrosis
• Fuzheng Huayu recipe
• macrophage
• oxidative phosphorylation

Acknowledgements

We thank Shanghai Modern Traditional Chinese Medicine Co., Ltd (Huanghai Pharmaceutical) for providing experimental medication.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by grants from the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission (202140234), the Shanghai Natural Science Foundation (21ZR1447700, 20ZR1446800) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81903977, 82000068).