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Published on: July 6, 2019
Protective effect of glutathione against lipopolysaccharide-induced inflammation and mortality in rats
1State Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, School of Life Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210093, China.
Objective:
To investigate protective effect of glutathione (GSH) against lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced inflammation and mortality in rats.
Methods:
Male Sprague-Dawley rats were injected intraperitoneally (i. p.) with GSH (40 mg/kg) 30 min prior to LPS injection (20 mg/kg). Animal survival rate and the production of nitric oxide in serum were measured. Morphology of lung was observed using hematoxylin and eosin staining. Western blotting was used to assess the expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) and the phosphorylation of p38 in rat peritoneal macrophages.
Results:
GSH significantly decreased LPS-induced mortality, inhibited serum NO production and eliminated lung histological injury. Furthermore, GSH inhibited the expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) proteins and the phosphorylation of p38 in LPS-stimulated rat peritoneal macrophages.
Conclusions:
These results indicated that GSH suppressed LPS-induced systemic inflammatory response in rats and p38 MAPK signal pathway was involved in this process.
