Astragaloside IV Alleviates Acute Liver Failure Induced by D-GalN/LPS by Upregulating Autophagy and Reducing Inflammation

Acute liver failure(ALF)is a life-threatening condition that manifests in an extremely serious manner and progresses rapidly.The following study investigated the protective effect of astragaloside IV(AS-IV),a traditional Chinese drug,on ALF,and its underlying mechanisms,focusing on autophagy and inflammation regulation.Mice were randomly divided into a saline group,a D-galactosamine and lipopolysac-charide(D-GalN/LPS)group and an AS-IV group.Biochemical analysis,immunohistochemistry,cytometric bead array,high-throughput quantitative PCR,flow cytometry and Western analysis were used to assess inflammation and liver damage 5 hours after D-GalN/LPS ex-posure.Astragaloside IV treatment reduced mortality by alleviating D-GalN/LPS–induced hepatic damage and decreasing inflammation(decreasing Ly6c+monocyte levels,reducing inflammatory cytokines and increasing anti-inflammatory factors)as well as upregulating au-tophagy.Furthermore,PCR array was used to detect expression of autophagy-related genes,which demonstrated a Log2 fold change in gene expression between the AS-IV and D-GalN/LPS groups ranging from 1.19 to-3.53,with Tnfsf10 showing the largest alteration be-tween the two groups.These data suggest that AS-IV may alleviate ALF by upregulating autophagy and reducing inflammation,and it may therefore be an interesting drug for alleviating ALF.