Chong Li,1,2,* Shu Lai,3,* Ruokun Yi,1 Xianrong Zhou,1,2 Xin Zhao,1 Qiang Li4 1Collaborative Innovation Center for Child Nutrition and Health Development, Chongqing Engineering Research Center of Functional Food, Chongqing Engineering Laboratory for Research and Development of Functional Food, Chongqing University of Education, Chongqing, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Food and Nutrition, College of Medical and Life Science, Silla University, Busan, Republic of Korea; 3Department of Pharmacology, Jiulongpo District People’s Hospital of Chongqing, Chongqing, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Emergency, The First Affiliated Hospital of Gannan Medical College, Ganzhou, Jiangxi, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Xin Zhao; Qiang Li, Email zhaoxin@cque.edu.cn; liqiang19840718@126.comObjective: The liver protection of blood coral polysaccharide (BCP) was investigated.Materials and Methods: We evaluated the effect of BCP on liver pathology, liver function, oxidation and inflammation-related indicators of D-Gal/LPS-induced acute liver failure (ALF) mice in vivo.Results: Liver index and liver pathology observation in mice showed that BCP could inhibit liver tissue swelling and hemorrhage, hepatocyte damage, and inflammatory infiltration in ALF. Serum liver function results showed that BCP effectively inhibits the levels of aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), total bilirubin (TBil), alkaline phosphatase (AKP), myeloperoxidase (MPO). High dose-blood coral polysaccharide (H-BCP) was better than silymarin. Serum antioxidant and immune results showed that BCP increased the levels of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), glutathione (GSH), and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px), and inhibited the levels of malondialdehyde (MDA) and nitric oxide (NO). Also, BCP increased immunoglobulins G (IgG) and A (IgA) levels, thereby enhancing humoral immunity. Liver anti-inflammatory ELISA results showed that BCP reduced the levels of interleukin (IL)-6, IL-1β, IL-17, tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, and interferon (IFN)-γ, and enhanced the level of anti-inflammatory factor IL-10. H-BCP was the most effective treatment. Real-time quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) of liver tissues confirmed that BCP increases the relative expression levels of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory-related cuprozinc superoxide dismutase (Cu/Zn-SOD, SOD1), manganese superoxide dismutase (Mn-SOD, SOD2), CAT, GSH, GSH-Px, and IL-10. In contrast, it inhibits inflammation-related genes IL-6, IL-1β, IL-17, TNF-α, IFN-γ, inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS, NOS2), and cyclooxygenase (COX)-2. In addition, BCP also inhibits the nuclear factor κ-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NF-κB) and enhance B-cell inhibitor-α (IκB-α) gene relative expression in the liver, which may be related to NF-κB pathway inhibition.Conclusion: BCP prevents D-Gal/LPS-induced ALF in mice, and its effect is concentration dependent.Keywords: blood coral polysaccharide, acute liver failure, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory
