Experimental study of oxymatrine in preventing glomerulosclerosis in rats with adriamycinª²induced nephropathy

    KONG Xiuª²Yan, JIN Yu, LI Jinª²Yu

    Department of Pediatrics, First Hospital, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China

    ¡¾Abstract¡¿ AIM: To observe the longª²term renoprotective effects of oxymatrine on the adriamycinª²induced nephropathy rats with chronic progressive renal lesions, and explore its mechanisms. METHODS: The experiments were performed on 60 male Wistar rats. The rats were randomly divided into 4 groups: normal control group, oxymatrine 50 mg/(kg¡¤d) treatment group, oxymatrine 100 mg/(kg¡¤d) treatment group, model group. Adriamycin (2 mg/kg) was intravenously administered twice at a 21ª²day interval. Oxymatrine was used for gastric perfusion from the 1st day after the second injection of adriamycin until the end of the study. After 7 weeks, 5 rats in each group were sacrificed every 8 weeks for blood biochemical analyses and histological study. Urinary protein (mg/24 h), the concentrations of serum creatinine (Cr) and blood urea nitrogen (BUN) were checked with automatic biochemistry analyzer, and a semiquantitative score was used to evaluate the degree of glomerular lesions. Finally, immunohistochemistry was to examine the expression of transª²forming growth factorª²¦Â1 (TGFª²¦Â1), Smad1, 2, 3, 5 and Smad7 in glomeruli. RESULTS: Oxymatrine not only reduced urinary protein, Cr and BUN in blood, but also significantly ameliorated glomerular sclerosis and mesangial proliferation. Meanwhile, immunohistochemistry staining indicated that TGFª²¦Â1, Smad1, 2, 3, 5 expressions increased and Smad7 expression decreased in model group as compared with the 2 treatment groups. CONCLUSION: Oxymatrine has a renoprotective effect on the adriamycinª²induced nephropathy rats with chronic progressive renal lesions, and its mechanism is considered to be relevant to intervention of the pathway of signal conduction of TGFª²¦Â1/ Smads. ......