Acetaminophen (APAP) is a widely used clinical antipyretic analgesic. It is estimated that about 2,000 people in Europe and the United States experience acute liver failure each year, and nearly 50% of these cases are drug-induced liver damage caused by APAP. N-acetyl-l-cysteine is commonly used to treat liver injury caused by APAP, but it has many side effects. Chitooligosaccharides (COS) are produced from naturally occurring chitin by chemical desalination, deproteinization, enzymatic hydrolysis and other processes. COS is reported to have good antibacterial, antiviral, anti-tumor and antioxidant properties, as well as anti-obesity and cholesterol-lowering effects. Hepatic injury caused by APAP is mainly caused by oxidative stress caused by ROS, and COS has significant antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects.
Xiang Junwei from Guangdong Pharmaceutical University and his team evaluated the protective effect and mechanism of COS with different average molecular weight (MW) against APAP-induced liver injury in order to further understand the application scope of COS. In this study, Xiang et al. constructed APAP-induced liver injury models in vitro and in vivo to investigate the COS of two MW, namely COST (MW≤1000Da) and COSM (MW≤ 3000Da). The results showed that COST and COSM significantly reduced the levels of serum ALT, AST and liver MDA, TNF⁃α, IL-1β and IL-6, and increased the levels and activities of GSH, SOD, GSH-Px and CAT. It was found that COST and COSM significantly decreased the expressions of CYP2E1, Keap1, p-ASK1/ASK1, P-MKK4 / MKK4, P-JNK/JNK, Caspase-3 and Bax in liver, and increased the levels of Nrf2, HO-1, eNOS and SOD The expression Bcl-XL. COST and COSM can inhibit the metabolism of APAP, inhibit oxidative damage and apoptosis pathway, promote the activation of liver antioxidant pathway, and finally improve the oxidative damage of liver caused by APAP. The study is in the journal Food & Function.
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