Abstract
To study the hepatoprotective effect of the essential oil of Artemisia capillaris Thunb., Asteraceae, on CCl4-induced liver injury in mice, the levels of serum aspartate aminotransferase and alanine aminotransferase, hepatic levels of reduced glutathione, activity of glutathione peroxidase, and the activities of superoxide dismutase and malondialdehyde were assayed. Administration of the essential oil of A capillaris at 100 and 50 mg/kg to mice prior to CCl4 injection was shown to confer stronger in vivo protective effects and could observably antagonize the CCl4-induced increase in the serum alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase activities and malondialdehyde levels as well as prevent CCl4-induced decrease in the antioxidant superoxide dismutase activity, glutathione level and glutathione peroxidase activity (p < 0.01). The oil mainly contained β-citronellol, 1,8-cineole, camphor, linalool, α-pinene, β-pinene, thymol and myrcene. This finding demonstrates that the essential oil of A. capillaris can protect hepatic function against CCl4-induced liver injury in mice.
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Key Projects in the National Science & Technology Pillar Program during the Twelfth Five-year Plan Period (Project No. 2013BAI05B01).
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QG, LY and XZ contributed to performing the laboratory work. YZ and XZ contributed to the estimation of the chemical composition. BW contributed to the analysis of the data. LY wrote the manuscript. QG and XW contributed to the critical reading of the manuscript. XF and WS designed the study, supervised the laboratory work and contributed to the critical reading of the manuscript. All of the authors have read the final manuscript and approved its submission.
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Gao, Q., Zhao, X., Yin, L. et al. The essential oil of Artemisia capillaris protects against CCl4-induced liver injury in vivo. Rev. Bras. Farmacogn. 26, 369–374 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bjp.2016.01.001
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bjp.2016.01.001