RESUMO
CONTEXT: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory disease caused by inflammation of the synovial membrane, leading to articular cartilage destruction. Shark cartilage polysaccharide (SCP) is a biodegradable, biocompatible, nontoxic, non-immunogenic and non-inflammatory polysaccharide that may be used in treating RA. OBJECTIVE: The anti-RA activities of SCP given orally to rats are investigated here for the first time. MATERIALS AND METHODS: SCP treatment group were administered with SCP-1, SCP-2 in the dosage of 9 mg/day for 24 days. The effect of SCP-1 and SCP-2 on the body weight, paw swelling, morphological changes of ankle and IL-6, IL-12 secretion in RA rats are examined. RESULTS: On day 24, there were no obvious differences in BMI between positive, SCP-1 and SCP-2 group. The swelling degree of SCP-1 and SCP-2 group was less serious than model group. X-ray revealed that SCP-1, SCP-2 group owned normal joint alignment and more smooth and tidy articular surface. The SCP-1 and SCP-2 have inhibitory effect on IL-6 (430.3 ± 25.6 pg/mL, 439.1 ± 35.9 pg/mL) and IL-12 (63.9 ± 20.1 pg/mL, 64.9 ± 14.1 pg/mL) secretion, which showed significant differences with model group (612 ± 72.3 pg/mL, 230.1 ± 29.2 pg/mL), but still higher than normal group (361.8 ± 47.1 pg/mL, 34.2 ± 15.1 pg/mL) and lower than positive group (418.1 ± 42.5 pg/mL, 90.2 ± 17.8 pg/mL). Especially, when the concentration of SCP was 125 µg/mL, the contents of IL-6 (431.1 ± 43.3 pg/mL, 401.7 ± 55.7 pg/mL) and IL-12 (63.2 ± 12.3 pg/mL, 52.3 ± 8.7 pg/mL) were lowest. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: These findings demonstrate that SCP have excellent anti-RA activities and thus have great potential as a drug for treating RA diseases.