• Microbiology and Biotechnology Letters
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.157-163
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• 2022

Alcoholic liver disease (ALD), which encompasses alcoholic steatosis, alcoholic hepatitis, and alcoholic cirrhosis, is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Although the economic and health impacts of ALD are clear, few advances have been made in its prevention or treatment. We recently demonstrated that the insect-derived antimicrobial peptide CopA3 exerts anti-apoptotic and anti-inflammatory activities in various cell systems, including neuronal cells and colonic epithelial cells. Here, we tested whether CopA3 inhibits ethanol-induced liver injury in mice. Mice were intraperitoneally injected with ethanol only or ethanol plus CopA3 for 24 h and then liver injury and inflammatory responses were measured. Ethanol enhanced the production of proinflammatory cytokines, tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, interleukin (IL)-1β, interferon (IFN)-γ, and IL-10. It also induced hepatocyte apoptosis and ballooning degeneration in hepatocytes. Notably, all these effects were eliminated or significantly reduced by CopA3 treatment. Collectively, our findings demonstrate that CopA3 ameliorates ethanol-induced liver cell damage and inflammation, suggesting the therapeutic potential of CopA3 for treating ethanol-induced liver injury.

• Korean Journal of Plant Resources
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.198-206
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• 2023

The effectiveness of the extracts of Alnus japonica and Portulaca oleracea, which are effective in improving alcohol-induced liver damage, was confirmed using acute and chronic alcoholic liver injury animal models. In the acute alcoholic liver injury model, dieting Alnus japonica and Portulaca oleracea complex (ALPOC) at a dose of 50 mg/kg showed no significant change in liver or body weight, while measured plasma ALT activity to be deficient (28.12 U/ml) compared to the alcohol intake group (42.5 U/ml), and confirmed that restored it to an average level. It showed an improvement of 34.9% compared to the alcohol intake group. AST activity confirmed that it showed a very effective liver protection activity by showing a gain of 12.6%. The chronic alcoholic liver damage animal model demonstrated that ALT showed an improvement effect of 25%, and AST showed an effect similar to that of the positive control group, Hovenia extract. In addition, through H&E staining analysis, observed that the ALPOC improved the necrosis and bleeding of the liver. And the ALPOC group showed intense antioxidant activity of 127% or more compared to the alcohol intake group, and this was confirmed to have a very high activity, which is more than 20% higher than that of the hovenia fruit extract.

• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.1078-1087
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• 2020

The current study was carried out to investigate the effect of oral administration for 30 days of the Jijang kimchi extracts on prevention of diabetes, alcoholic liver injury and reduction of blood lipids in laboratory rats with alcoholic liver injury and diabetes induced by streptozotocin. In a diabetic model animals, the blood lipid profile, ALT, and AST levels were lower in kimchi extract groups compared to DC (diabetes control) group, and blood glucose level of DCJK (DC+oral administration with Jijang kimchi extracts) group was lower than that of DCCK (DC+oral administration with commercial kimchi extracts) group. Insulin levels were increased in order of NC (normal control), DCJK > DCCK > DC groups. In alcoholic liver injury model animals, ALT, AST and bilirubin were lowed in order of AC (alcohol group received 1 bottle of soju) > ACCK (1 bottle of soju plus oral administration with commercial kimchi extracts) ACJK (AC plus oral administration with Jijang kimchi extracts) > NC groups. In the clinical pathologic findings of liver tissue, AC group was severely injured, and tended to be improved in groups eating a 1 bottle of soju plus oral administration with kimchi extracts, especially Jijang kimchi extract group. The results suggest that eating Jijang kimchi can improve insulin secretion ability while lowering blood lipid profile, blood sugar and ALT, AST, and bilirubin levles in diabetic and alcoholic liver injury model animals.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.264-269
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• 2013

Silymarin has been introduced fairly recently as a hepatoprotective agent. But its mechanisms of action still have not been well established. The aim of this study was to make alcoholic fatty liver model of rats in a short time and investigate silymarin's protective effects and possible mechanisms on alcoholic fatty liver for rats. The model of rat's alcoholic fatty liver was induced by intragastric infusion of ethanol and high-fat diet for six weeks. Histopathological changes were assessed by hematoxylin and eosin staining (HE). The activities of alanine transarninase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST), the levels of total bilirubin (TBIL), total cholesterol (TC) and triglyceride (TG) in serum were detected with routine laboratory methods using an autoanalyzer. The activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and the level of malondialdehyde (MDA) in liver homogenates were measured by spectrophotometry. The TG content in liver tissue was determined by spectrophotometry. The expression of nuclear factor-${\kappa}B$ (NF-${\kappa}B$), intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) in the liver were analyzed by immunohistochemistry. Silymarin effectively protected liver from alcohol-induced injury as evidenced by improving histological damage situation, reducing ALT and AST activities and TBIL level in serum, increasing SOD and GPx activities and decreasing MDA content in liver homogenates and reducing TG content in liver tissue. Additionally, silymarin markedly downregulated the expression of NF-${\kappa}B$ p65, ICAM-1 and IL-6 in liver tissue. In conclusion, Silymarin could protect against the liver injury caused by ethanol administration. The effect may be related to alleviating lipid peroxidation and inhibiting the expression of NF-${\kappa}B$.

• Journal of Korean Medicine for Obesity Research
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.74-82
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• 2018

Objectives: The objective of this study is to investigate the effects of Silbi-um (SBU) extract on the alcoholic fatty liver induced by EtOH administration for 8 weeks. Methods: Male Sprague Dawley rats were used. All animals were randomly divided into 3 groups; Normal, EtOH and EtOH+SBU. The rats of EtOH group were daily treated with ethanol of 25% (v/v) for 8 weeks (n=10). EtOH+SBU group was orally treated with SBU water extract after ethanol administration (n=10). The rats of Normal group were treated with saline (n=10). After 8 weeks, the mean body weight, liver weight, and liver-body weight ratio were calculated. The serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) of all groups were measured. The morphological alterations were observed using hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) and Oil Red O staining. Moreover, the alteration of tumor necrosis $factor-{\alpha}$ ($TNF-{\alpha}$) levels were analyzed immunohistochemistrically. Results: The histological data showed that liver sections from EtOH group displayed severe steatosis. SBU extract significantly inhibited the progression of the alcoholic liver injury. The increased serum level of ALT and AST induced by ethanol administration were decreased by SBU extract. Furthermore, SBU extract significantly decreased the liver concentrations of $TNF-{\alpha}$. Conclusions: SBU water extract attenuated the alcohol induced fatty liver by improving hepatic lipid metabolism via suppression of $TNF-{\alpha}$ protein. SBU could be effective in protecting the liver from alcoholic fatty liver.

• Natural Product Sciences
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.201-207
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• 2021

We have previously reported that Acer tegmentosum extract, which is traditionally used in Korea to reduce alcohol-related liver injury, suppresses liver inflammation caused by excessive alcohol consumption and might improve metabolism. The active ingredient, 6-O-galloylsalidroside (GAL), was isolated from A. tegmentosum, and we hypothesized that GAL could provide desirable pharmacological benefits by ameliorating physiological conditions caused by alcohol abuse. Therefore, this study focused on whether GAL could ameliorate alcoholic fat accumulation and repair liver injury in mice. During chronic alcohol consumption plus binge feeding in mice, GAL was administered orally once per day for 11 days. Intrahepatic lipid accumulation was measured in vivo using a noninvasive method, ¹H magnetic resonance imaging, and confirmed by staining with hematoxylin and eosin and Oil Red O. The serum levels of alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) were measured using a Konelab system, and the triglyceride content was measured in liver homogenates using an enzymatic peroxide assay. The results suggested that GAL alleviated alcohol-induced steatosis,e as indicated by decreased hepatic and serum triglyceride levels in ethanol-fed mice. GAL treatment also correlated with a decrease in the Cd36 mRNA expression, thus potentially inhibiting the development of alcoholic steatosis via the hepatic de novo lipogenesis pathway. Furthermore, treatment with GAL inhibited the expression of cytochrome P450 2E1 and attenuated hepatocellular damage, as reflected by a reduction in ALT and AST levels. These findings suggest that GAL extracted from A. tegmentosum has the potential to serve as a bioactive agent for the treatment of alcoholic fatty liver and liver damage.

• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.260-267
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• 2012

This study examined the effects of baicalin, a bioactive flavonoid isolated from Scutellaria baicalensis, on hepatic injury caused by ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) in alcoholic fatty liver. Rats were fed an ethanol liquid diet or a control isocaloric diet for 5 weeks, and then subjected to 60 min of hepatic ischemia and 5 h of reperfusion. Baicalin (200 mg/kg) was administered intraperitoneally 24 and 1 h before ischemia. After reperfusion, baicalin attenuated the increase in serum alanine aminotransferase activity. The levels of cytosolic cytochrome c protein expression, caspase-3 activity, the number of apoptotic cells increased after reperfusion, which were higher in ethanol-fed animals, were attenuated by baicalin. Following I/R, the hepatic lipid peroxidation was elevated, whereas hepatic glutathione content was decreased. These changes attenuated by baicalin. In ethanol-fed animals, baicalin augmented the increases in heme oxygenase-1 protein and mRNA expressions, and nuclear Nrf2 expression. In conclusion, our findings suggest that baicalin ameliorates I/R-induced hepatocellular damage by suppressing apoptosis and oxidative stress in alcoholic fatty liver.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.432-438
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• 2009

In this paper, we evaluated the performance of the automatic classifier applied for the discrimination of acute alcoholic liver injury and chronic liver fibrosis. The classifier uses the discriminant peaks of the preprocessed Raman spectrum as a feature set. In preprocessing step, we subtract baseline and apply Savitzky-Golay smoothing filter which is known to be useful at preserving peaks. After identifying discriminant peaks from the spectra, we carried out the classification experiments using MAP and neural networks. According to the experimental results, the classifier shows the promising results to diagnosis alcoholic liver injury and chronic liver fibrosis. Classification results over 80% means that the peaks used as a feature set is useful for diagnosing liver disease.

• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.105-115
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• 2015

Background: Alcoholic steatosis is the earliest and most common liver disease, and may precede the onset of more severe forms of liver injury. Methods: The effect of Korean Red Ginseng extract (RGE) was tested in two murine models of ethanol (EtOH)-feeding and EtOH-treated hepatocytes. Results: Blood biochemistry analysis demonstrated that RGE treatment improved liver function. Histopathology and measurement of hepatic triglyceride content verified the ability of RGE to inhibit fat accumulation. Consistent with this, RGE administration downregulated hepatic lipogenic gene induction and restored hepatic lipolytic gene repression by EtOH. The role of oxidative stress in the pathogenesis of alcoholic liver diseases is well established. Treatment with RGE attenuated EtOH-induced cytochrome P450 2E1, 4-hydroxynonenal, and nitrotyrosine levels. Alcohol consumption also decreased phosphorylation of adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase, which was restored by RGE. Moreover, RGE markedly inhibited fat accumulation in EtOH-treated hepatocytes, which correlated with a decrease in sterol regulatory element-binding protein-1 and a commensurate increase in sirtuin 1 and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-a expression. Interestingly, the ginsenosides Rb2 and Rd, but not Rb1, significantly inhibited fat accumulation in hepatocytes. Conclusion: These results demonstrate that RGE and its ginsenoside components inhibit alcoholic steatosis and liver injury by adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase/sirtuin 1 activation both in vivo and in vitro, suggesting that RGE may have a potential to treat alcoholic liver disease.

• The Korean Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.385-394
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• 2020

Eupatilin is known to possess anti-apoptotic, anti-oxidative, and anti-inflammatory properties. We report here that eupatilin has a protective effect on the ethanol-induced injury in rats. Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into 6 groups: control, vehicle, silymarin, eupatilin 10 mg/kg, eupatilin 30 mg/kg, and eupatilin 100 mg/kg. Plasma levels of aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) were analyzed to determine the extent of liver damage. Total cholesterol (TC) and triglycerides (TG) were analyzed to determine the level of liver steatosis. Malondialdehyde level, superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity, and glutathione (GSH) level were analyzed to determine the extent of oxidative stress. Tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α and interleukin (IL)-1β were quantified to verify the degree of inflammation. Based on our findings, chronic alcohol treatment significantly changed the serum indexes and liver indicators of the model rats, which were significantly improved by eupatilin treatment. Rats in the eupatilin-treatment group showed reduced levels of AST, ALT, TG, TC, TNF-α, and IL-1β, increased SOD activity and GSH levels, and improved overall physiology compared to the alcoholic liver disease model rats. H&E staining also verified the eupatilin-mediated improvement in liver injury. In conclusion, eupatilin inhibits alcohol-induced liver injury via its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects.