Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2020. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jun 7, 2020; 26(21): 2810-2820
Published online Jun 7, 2020. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v26.i21.2810
Gan Shen Fu Fang ameliorates liver fibrosis in vitro and in vivo by inhibiting the inflammatory response and extracellular signal-regulated kinase phosphorylation
Qing-Hong Du, Chu-Jun Zhang, Wei-Hong Li, Yan Mu, Ya Xu, Scott Lowe, Lin Han, Xue Yu, Shu-Yan Wang, Yu Li, Jian Li
Qing-Hong Du, Chu-Jun Zhang, Yan Mu, Ya Xu, Lin Han, Xue Yu, Shu-Yan Wang, Yu Li, Jian Li, Department of Histology and Embryology, School of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing 102488, China
Qing-Hong Du, Institute of Tibetan Medicine, University of Tibetan Medicine, Lhasa 850000, Tibet Autonomous Region, China
Wei-Hong Li, School of Nursing, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing 102488, China
Scott Lowe, School of Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL 61820, United States
Author contributions: Du QH and Li J designed the research; Du QH wrote this paper; Zhang CJ, Du QH, Li WH, Li J, Xu Y, Han L, Mu Y, Lowe S, Yu X and Wang SY performed the experiments; Li Y contributed new analytic tools; all authors approved the final version of the article.
Supported by the Innovation Team of the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, No. 2019-JYB-TD-006; the National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 81873099; Scientific Research Support Plan for the Construction of Doctoral Program of University of Tibetan Medicine.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board at Beijing University of Chinese Medicine.
Institutional animal care and use committee statement: All experimental procedures were conducted in accordance with the guidelines for the use of experimental animals and were approved by the Institutional Review Committee on Animal Care and Use at the Experimental Animal Centre of Beijing University of Chinese Medicine [certificate of conformity: SCXK (2012-0001)].
Conflict-of-interest statement: All other authors have nothing to disclose.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
ARRIVE guidelines statement: The authors have read the ARRIVE guidelines, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the ARRIVE guidelines.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (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/
Corresponding author: Jian Li, PhD, Professor, Teacher, Department of Histology and Embryology, School of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, No.11 Bei San Huan Dong Road, Beijing 100029, China. lijian@bucm.edu.cn
Received: February 17, 2020
Peer-review started: February 17, 2020
First decision: March 30, 2020
Revised: March 30, 2020
Accepted: April 27, 2020
Article in press: April 27, 2020
Published online: June 7, 2020
Core Tip

Core tip: Liver fibrosis results from various kinds of chronic liver diseases and there is no specific treatment so far. Inflammatory response and extracellular signal-regulated kinase cascade play an important role in liver fibrosis development and progression. In this study, we observed the effects of herbal medicine, Gan Shen Fu Fang (GSFF) on liver fibrosis in vivo and in vitro. The results indicate that GSFF alleviates liver fibrosis progression in vivo and inhibits HSC-T6 activation in vitro, which may be related with inhibited inflammatory response and downregulated extracellular signal-regulated kinase phosphorylation. GSFF may provide hope for liver fibrosis treatment.