SENP1 attenuates the liver fibrosis through down-regulating the expression of SMAD2

To investigate whether SENP1 could play a regulating role in the liver fibrosis process, the Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were used to establish the liver fibrosis rat models by intraperitoneally injecting with 1 ml/kg of 10% CCl₄, while the control normal rats were injected with olive oil. Then confirmation experiments to verify the successful establishment of these models were conducted by detecting the cellular and lobular architecture, and liver function indexes using hematoxylin-eosin staining, Masson's trichrome staining and microplate method, respectively. In addition, the expression levels of fibrosis markers including collagen I, collagen III, α-SMA and TGF-β1 were inspected using quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR), as well as SMAD2. Subsequently, the relative mRNA and protein level of SENP1 was also determined via qRT-PCR and western blot analysis. Next, the HSC-T6 cells of SENP1 knock-down were constructed and used to test the relative protein expression levels of α-SMA and SMAD2 in these cells. The results of hematoxylin-eosin staining, Masson's trichrome staining and microplate method turned out that the rat liver fibrosis models were constructed successfully, which was further confirmed by the increased expression of collagen I, collagen III, α-SMA and TGF-β1 in mRNA and protein level, as well as SMAD2. Then the expression of SENP1 was overexpressed in the rat liver fibrosis models induced by CCl₄ and the TGF-β1 treatment could increase the protein expression level of collagen I, collagen III and α-SMA. Lastly, the SENP1 knockdown HSC-T6 cells were successfully constructed, while the silence of SENP1 down-regulated the protein expression of α-SMA and SMAD2. In conclusion, this study provided a new regulation mechanism about the liver fibrosis process.