Borneol Induced Hepatotoxicity via Caspase-3 and Oxidative Stress Pathwaysin in Zebrafish

Objective: Borneol is a widely used Chinese medicine, and borneol extracted from plants or synthesized are the two major types of borneol applied in clinical therapy. In this study, the hepatotoxicity of natural and synthetic borneol in both larval and adult zebrafish was detected. Methods: Adult fish and larval were exposed to borneol. Results: Synthetic borneol induced more obvious developmental toxicity, such as morphological deformity, delay of yolk sac absorption, disappearance of swim bladder, loose hepatic tissue, irregular cells, cell vacuolation and decline in cell count; treatment with synthetic borneol caused more severe oxidative stress, as changes in the activities of CAT and SOD and accumulation of ROS and MDA are more notable; synthetic borneol could disrupt lipid and glycogen metabolism more seriously possibly due to the more notable expression changes of metabolismrelated genes (ide, sirt4, dgat1b, and mgst1); synthetic borneol possibly produced hepatic injury by inducing cell apoptosis. Discussion: Our results suggest synthetic borneol has greater potential to cause hepatotoxicity compare to natural borneol. Conclusions: SB showed higher developmental toxicity than NB in larval zebrafish. Exposure to SB disordered the liver’s lipid and glycogen metabolism caused by liver injury in higher concentration groups These findings have implications for understanding the mechanism of the hepatotoxicity caused by borneol, and provide a scientific basis for the drug safety of borneol.