Effect of berberine on expression of vascular endothelial growth factor in diabetic nephropathy rats / 中国药理学通报

ABSTRACT

Aim To investigate the renoprotective effect of berberine in diabetic nephropathy rat model. Methods The rat model of DN was induced by intra-peritoneal injection of streptozotocin ( STZ ) after fed with high sugar and high fat diet for six weeks. The rats were divided into 5 groups randomly, i. e. normal control group, model group, BBR ( 50 mg · kg-1 ) , BBR ( 100 mg · kg-1 ) and BBR ( 200 mg · kg-1 ) treatment group. The fasting blood glucose ( FBG) was evaluated at 2, 4, 6,8 week respectively. The patho-logical changes in the kidney were determined by PAS staining. The expression of vascular endothelial growth factor ( VEGF) was detected by immunohistochemistry and Western blot respectively. Results Compared with normal control group, the value of FBG, SCr, BUN and UTP of model group were sharply increased. Compared with model group, the value of FBG in ber-berine different dosage treatment groups were signifi-cantly decreased to various degrees, and berberine dif-ferent dosage treatment could decrease the levels of SCr, BUN and UTP in different degree. Berberine could surpress the alterations of pathological changes in the kidneys and downregulate the expression levels of VEGF in the kidney of diabetic rats with nephropathy. Conclusion Berberine could significantly ameliorate the biochemical indicators and renal injury of the model rats through affecting the abnormal expression levels of VEGF in the kidney.