Effects of Ma-Xing-Shi-Gan-Tang on Bleomycin- Induced Lung Fibrosis in Rats
CHEN-WEI CHANG1, CHIH-CHAN LIN2,3, HSIAO-YIN LIEN4, YUNG-CHANG LIN2, YUNG-HUSAN CHEN5, FANG-RONG CHANG5 AND ZHEN-HUA LI1*
1. Respiratory Disease Institute, China Medical University, Shenyang, China
2. Department of Veterinary Medicine, National Chung-Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan, R.O.C.
3. Department of Medical Research, Chi-Mei Medical Center, Tainan, Taiwan, R.O.C.
4. Department of Pharmacy, Yongkang Veterans Hospital, Tainan, Taiwan, R.O.C.
5. Graduate Institute of Natural Products, College of Pharmacy, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, R.O.C.
(Received: January 24, 2010; Accepted: March 15, 2011)
ABSTRACT
In this study, after doses of 1 g/kg/day of the traditional Chinese formula Ma-Xing-Shi-Gan-Tang (MXSGT), significant reversal of pneumatocysts was achieved in Spague-Dawley rats with bleomycin-induced lung fibrosis. We found that MXSGT can improve the damaged condition of general cellular membranes. Greatly increased levels of lung NO were found in the bleomycin-induced group, which were then significantly reduced by MXSGT. MXSGT drastically prevented depletion of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and reduced the myeloperoxidase (MPO) activities and malondialdehyde (MDA) levels in lung tissue of rats treated with bleomycin. On the basis of the results presented in this paper, MXSGT prevents bleomycin-induced lung fibrosis, and the mechanism may be due to the inhibitory effect on nitric oxide generation in the bleomycin-induced lung-fibrosis model of rats.
Key words : Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, bleomycin, Ma-Xing-Gan-Shi-Tang, nitric oxide