Lycium barbarum polysaccharides improve CCl4-induced liver fibrosis, inflammatory response and TLRs/NF-kB signaling pathway expression in wistar rats

Lycium barbarum polysaccharides (LBPs) have multiple biological and pharmacological functions, including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anticancer activities. This research was conducted to evaluate whether LBPs could alleviate carbon tetrachloride (CCl4)-induced liver fibrosis and the underlying signaling pathway mechanism. Fifty male wistar rats were randomly allocated to five groups (n=10): control, CCl4 and CCl4 with 400, 800 or 1600mg/kg LBPs, respectively. Each wistar rat from each group was used for blood and tissue collections at the end of experiment. The results showed that CCl4 induced liver fibrosis as demonstrated by increasing histopathological damage, α-smooth muscle actin expression, aspartate transaminase activities, alkaline phosphatase activities and alanine aminotransferase activities. LBPs supplementation alleviated CCl4-induced liver fibrosis as demonstrated by reversing the above parameters. In addition, CCl4 treatment induced the oxidative injury, increased the mRNA levels of tumor necrosis factor-α, monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 and interleukin-1β, and up-regulated the protein expressions of toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4), TLR2, myeloid differentiation factor 88, nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-kB) and p-p65. LBPs supplementation alleviated CCl4-induced oxidative injury, inflammatory response and TLRs/NF-kB signaling pathway expression by reversing the above some parameters. These results suggest that the alleviating effects of LBPs on CCl4-induced liver fibrosis in wistar rats may be through inhibiting the TLRs/NF-kB signaling pathway expression.