ASTRAGALOSIDE ALLEVIATES BLEOMYCIN-INDUCED PULMONARY FIBROSIS IN RATS

WEI-NA YU, LI-FENG SUN, HUA YANG^*

Department of Respiration, Yantai Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Yantai, China

Objective: The study aimed to explore the protective effects of astragaloside against bleomycin-induced pulmonary fibrosis.

Methods: Rats were randomly divided into six groups: saline control group (control), bleomycin group (BLM), bleomycin added astragaloside at 20 mg/kg.bw (BLM+AS20), bleomycin added astragaloside at 40 mg/kg.bw (BLM+AS40), bleomycin added astragaloside at 60 mg/kg.bw (BLM+AS60), bleomycin added dexamethasone (DE). On Day 3, 7, 14 and 28, eight rats in each group were respectively sacrificed to collect lung samples for further analysis. The activity of PLA2, hydroxyproline content and the content of PGE2, LTC4, TGF-β1 in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) were measured on different days. HE-staining and optical micro- scopy were performed to examine the pathological changes in lungs.

Results: The activity of PLA2, hydroxyproline content and PGE2, LTC4, TGF-β1 in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) were obviously increased for BLM group compared to the control group. Compared with the BLM group, AS treatment groups significantly alleviated all the above negative changes exited in the BLM group in a dose-dependent manner. Moreover, the pathological injury was also gradually improved by AS treatment compared with the BLM rats, which was similar to the dexamethasone group.

Conclusion: Our study suggested a therapeutic potential of AS in the treatment of pulmonary fibrosis.