Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. May 14, 2016; 22(18): 4484-4500
Published online May 14, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i18.4484
Role of estrogen receptor β selective agonist in ameliorating portal hypertension in rats with CCl4-induced liver cirrhosis
Cheng-Gang Zhang, Bin Zhang, Wen-Sheng Deng, Ming Duan, Wei Chen, Zhi-Yong Wu
Cheng-Gang Zhang, Bin Zhang, Wen-Sheng Deng, Ming Duan, Wei Chen, Zhi-Yong Wu, Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Ren Ji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200127, China
Cheng-Gang Zhang, Department of General Surgery, Yueyang Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai 200437, China
Author contributions: Zhang CG and Wu ZY designed the research; Zhang CG, Zhang B, Deng WS and Duan M performed the research; Chen W provided vital reagents and analytical tools and revised the manuscript; Zhang CG and Zhang B co-wrote the paper.
Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation for the Youth of China, No. 81400630.
Institutional review board statement: The study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Renji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (No. RJ-20151211).
Institutional animal care and use committee statement: All of the animal procedures were conducted in accordance with the National Institutes of Health Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (NIH Publications No 80-23, revised in 1996). All experimental animal procedures conformed to the guidelines of the National Institutes of Health Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No conflict of interest exists whatsoever.
Data sharing statement: The data referred to in this manuscript have been generated solely by the authors. No other party has been involved. Therefore, no additional unpublished data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Zhi-Yong Wu, MD, PhD, Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Ren Ji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, No. 1630 Dongfang Road, Shanghai 200127, China. zhiyongwu1949@sina.com
Telephone: +86-21-68383732 Fax: +86-21-68383732
Received: December 28, 2015
Peer-review started: December 29, 2015
First decision: January 28, 2016
Revised: February 27, 2016
Accepted: March 18, 2016
Article in press: March 18, 2016
Published online: May 14, 2016
Core Tip

Core tip: Liver cirrhosis and portal hypertension (PHT) are subject to gender and estrogen levels. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether estrogen receptor β selective agonists could ameliorate intrahepatic resistance and mitigate PHT in rats with CCl4-induced cirrhosis, and uncover the underlying mechanism by investigating RhoA/ROCK and NO/PKG signaling. The authors propose that treatment with an estrogen receptor β selective agonist could improve cirrhotic PHT via regulating RhoA/ROCK and NO/PKG signaling.