Studies Of The Effects Of YiGanKang Decoction And Its Separated Recipe And Their Medicated Serum On HSC Activation, Proliferation, Collagen Metabolism And Cytokines

Liver fibrosis is a self-healing process directing towards damage factors, at the same time, is also a common pathological basis and an inevitable stage of chronic liver diseases developing into hepatic cirrhosis; therefore, the process is an important link to influence the prognosis of chronic liver diseases. At present,it is thought that liver fibrosis is reversible while hepatic cirrhosis is irreversible. There is a high incidence rate of liver diseases in our country, and chronic hepatitis B and C are commonly encountered and seriously influence the people's life quality and labor level. Because there is no effective antiviral method, it has become a quite important countermeasure of treating chronic liver diseases to stop or reverse the liver fibrosis progress.The pathological foundation of liver fibrosis includes the increased synthesis and decreased degradation of extracellular matrix (ECM), which leads the excessive deposition of collagen. The activation and proliferation of hepatic stellate cells (HSC)(major collagen-synthesizing cells)are key links of liver fibrosis. In a chronically damaged liver, some stimulators can greatly change HSC's shape, function and phenotype, which are remarkably characterized by the increased HSC proliferation, α-SMA expression and ECM synthesis. The activation of HSC is a process of transformation from still HSC to myofibroblasts (MFB) and dependent on the network adjustment of numerous cytokines(CKs), of which platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) and transforming growth factor-β1(TGF-β1) play the most crucial roles. PDGF is the strongest HSC division and proliferation factor and TGF-β1 is the strongest collagen growth stimulating factor. PDGF, TGF-β1, etc can activate HSC; in turn, the activated HSC can activate more cytokines, forming an amplification loop. Therefore, it has become a new target spot and a new hot point in the treatment of liver fibrosis to inhibit the expression of cytokines such as PDGF, TGF-β1, etc.With the gradual clarification of pathologic mechanism of liver fibrosis, it is possible to prevent, treat and reverse the liver fibrosis. However, up to now, there is no effective therapeutic method against liver fibrosis in modern medicine; while the good preventing and treating efficacies against liver fibrosis and low toxicity of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) have brought to the extensive attention of the scholars at home and abroad at present. In recent years, a lot of experiments and clinical researches have confirmed that blood-activating and stasis-eliminating TCM has a better therapeutic efficacy in the treatment of liver fibrosis. YiGanKang decoction is an excellent recipe used to treat chronic liver diseases which is meticulously researched and developed on the basis of the basic theory of TCM and the clinical experience for several decades by expert ---Dr Yao Xixian. Its precursor was YiGan granule put into production and used in clinical treatment in 1980s, and its good therapeutic efficacy and no any adverse reactions were received by vast number of patients. YiGanKang decoction is a further improved preparation based on YiGan granule.Although the studies on treating liver fibrosis by the use of TCM have made an encouraging progress, the study on active mechanism and ingredients has been a hot point and a difficult point in the new drug development and research of TCM. Compound preparations (especially cruder preparations) contain more impurities. When these preparations are added to a reaction system in vitro, their non-specific physicochemical factors such as pH, osmotic pressure, tannin, inorganic salts and so on seriously interfere the experiments and lead to false positive or false negative results. In 1984, the seropharmacological method was put forward in Japan, which is used to accurately reproduce the active ingredients of compound preparations of TCM playing roles in vivo. At present, drug-containing serums are from normal animals in many studies; however, the pharmacological action is a result of ...