Role of Huoxue Jiangzhi Recipe in preventing and treating fatty liver in mice

AIM: To explore the role of Huoxue Jiangzhi Recipe in preventing and treating fatty liver in mice and its underlying mechanisms. METHODS: Healthy Kunming mice were fed with high-fat diet and treated intragastrically with different doses of Huoxue Jiangzhi Recipe (compound of ginseng, panax notoginseng and rhizoma gastrodiae, named as GST) for 2 weeks. The levels of blood lipids and triglyceride (TG) in hepatic tissues were measured. Meanwhile, liver index and hepatic pathology were observed. The optimized dosage of Huoxue Jiangzhi Recipe was determined by the experiments. The mice were divided into normal control group (NC group, fed with normal diet) and model group (fed with high-fat diet). The model mice were subdivided into 3 subgroups 12 weeks later: HF group (fed continuously with high-fat diet), ND group (fed with normal diet), GSL group (fed with normal diet and treated intragastrically with GSL). The mice in NC, HF and ND groups were given distilled water by gastric perfusion. Two weeks later, all mice were killed, and blood was collected for measuring serum total cholesterol (TC),TG,high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C), low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C) contents, hepatic TC, TG, malondialdehyde (MDA) levels and superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity were detected. Moreover, liver index and hepatic pathology were also observed. The mRNA expression of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha (PPARα) and cytochrome-P450 2E1 (CYP2E1) in the liver was examined by RT-PCR. RESULTS: GST significantly decreased serum lipid, hepatic lipid and MDA levels and elevated SOD activity. Furthermore, GST markedly reduced liver index, improved hepatic adipose infiltration, increased PPARα mRNA expression and inhibited CYP2E1 mRNA expression. CONCLUSION: GST is effective in the treatment of fatty liver in mice by up-regulating PPARα, thus reducing serum and hepatic TG levels, down-regulating CYP2E1 and inhibiting lipid peroxidation.