Effects of probiotics on alcoholic liver injury in rats and its mechanisms / 中国药理学通报

ABSTRACT

Aim To observe the protective effects of probiotics on alcoholic liver injury in rats .Methods Male Wistar rats were randomly divided into the follow-ing three groups: control group , normal diet with nor-mal (5 ×108 CFU· kg -1· d -1) treatment group.Ex-cluding the rats in the normal control group , the other animals were initially received intragastric administra-tion with 56%( V/V) ethanol 5.5~11.0 mL· kg -1 · day -1 for 8 weeks.Then the rats’ faeces were collect-ed, and the liver and the small intestine were obtained for pathologic and ultrastructural observation .Serum ALT, AST and ALP was measured by method of bio-chemistry .Serum DAO and D-LA was measured by en-zyme linked immunosorbent assay .The expression of FOXO4 in small intestine was detected by immunohis-tochemistry .The intestinal flora genome DNA was ex-tracted from faeces and the sequence of 16 S rDNA was analyzed by high-throughput sequencing technologies . Results Hepatic steatosis was obviously improved in probiotics treatment groups compared with ethanol-trea-ted group , and the ultrastructural such as mitochondri-al and rough endoplasmic reticulum pathological chan-ges was significantly alleviated . The ultrastructural changes in intestinal were better in probiotics treatment group than in the ethanol-treated group .And ethanol-induced rats ’ serum ALT, AST, ALP, D-LA and DAO levels showed a significant reduction in the probi-otics treatment groups compared with the ethanol-trea-ted group ( P<0.05 ) .The FOXO4 expression was in-creased obviously in the probiotics treatment groups compared with the ethanol-treated group ( P <0.05 ) . And the intestinal flora diversity was impacted after feeding alcohol , and probiotics had a certain regulative action in helping the intestinal flora back to normal state; At phylum level , the Firmicutes quantity was lower and the Bacteroidetes quantity was higher in eth-anol-treated group than those in the control group ( P<0.05 ) , and the conditions were improved after supple-menting probiotics .At genus level , the percent of ge-nus abundance was similar to normal control group in the probiotics treatment groups compared with the etha-nol-treated group .Conclusion Probiotics can relieve liver injury induced by alcohol in rats , and the mecha-nism may be related to the modulation of probiotics on the intestinal flora distribution and intestinal barrier .