Antioxidative and hepatoprotective effect of CGX, an herbal medicine, against toxic acute injury in mice.
OBJECTIVE
CGX, a modified traditional Chinese herbal drug whose name means "liver cleaning," is used to treat various liver disorders. This study investigated the protective effects of CGX and its mechanisms.


METHODS
After pretreating ICR mice twice daily with CGX (po, 50 or 100mg/kg) or distilled water for three consecutive days, acute liver injury was induced by a single injection of CCl(4) (ip, 10mL/kg of 0.2% in olive oil) (n=8 per group).


RESULTS
Pretreatment with CGX significantly attenuated the elevation in biochemical parameters, such as alanine transaminase (ALT), aspartate transaminase (AST), and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) in serum, and the malondialdehyde concentrations in liver tissue. Pretreatment with CGX significantly restored the reduction of catalase activity and glutathione (GSH) content, but not superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity, and it inhibited the CCl(4)-induced high expression of iNOS and TNF-alpha in hepatic tissue.


CONCLUSIONS
This study showed that CGX has hepatoprotective effects against free radical-induced acute injury via primarily antioxidative properties.
Hu
Xiao-Ping
XP
East-West Cancer Center, Dunsan Oriental Hospital of Daejeon University, 1136 Dunsan-dong Seo-gu, Daejeon 302-122, Republic of Korea.
Shin
Jang-Woo
JW
Wang
Jing-Hua
JH
Cho
Jung-Hyo
JH
Son
Jin-Young
JY
Cho
Chong-Kwan
CK
Son
Chang-Gue
CG