Abstract
Di-(2-ethylhexyl)-phthalate (DEHP) is the most commonly used plasticizer and it has been a ubiquitous environmental contaminant which affects health. The purpose of this study was to investigate the protective effect of the Lycium barbarum polysaccharide (LBP) at dosages of 100, 200, and 300 mg/kg bw on DEHP-induced (3000 mg/kg) toxicity in rat liver through a 28-day animal experiment. The results showed that LBP attenuated oxidative stress slightly by lowering the production of ROS and improving the activity of SOD and GSH-Px in liver and serum of DEHP treatment rats. At the same time, the levels of PXR, CYP450, CYP2E1, CYP3A1, UGT1, and GST were reduced after LBP treatment. Moreover, LBP decreased the mRNA expression of PXR, UGT1, and GST significantly. These findings suggested that LBP might ameliorate DEHP-induced liver injury by down-regulating the expression of PXR in liver, further down-regulating the downstream phase I and II detoxification enzymes, thus reducing the damage caused by DEHP. Therefore, LBP may have the potential to become an auxiliary therapeutic agent as a natural ingredient of health food.
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Funding
This work was supported by Special Program for Risk Assessment of Agri-Products Quality and Safety of Ministry of Agriculture (GJFP201701505) and Generic Technique Innovation Team Construction of Modern Agriculture of Guangdong Province (2019KJ130).
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Rui-jing Liu: conceptualization, methodology, investigation, resources, data curation, visualization, project administration, writing-original draft preparation. Yong-jian He: methodology, resources. Huan Liu: methodology. Shao-wen Huang: methodology, formal analysis. Dong-dong Zheng: investigation. Chun-hong Liu: conceptualization, formal analysis, investigation, data curation, writing-review and editing, supervision, project administration, funding acquisition. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
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Liu, Rj., He, Yj., Liu, H. et al. Protective effect of Lycium barbarum polysaccharide on di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate-induced toxicity in rat liver. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 23501–23509 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-11990-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-11990-8