The Evaluation Of Endogenous Nitric Oxide In Alcoholic Fatty Liver

BACKGROUND & AIM:Alcohol is one of the most common drugs of abuse, with several million people in the world suffering from alcoholism, which lead to alcoholic liver disease. With the improvement of life condition, both per capita ethanol consumption and alcohol abuse are rising, therefore, the morbidity of ALD also increases. Alcohol has been the second risk factor of developing liver disease except for hepatic B virus. Alcoholic liver disease includes a spectrum of abnormalities in the liver ranging from steatosis to alcoholic hepatitis to hepatic fibrosis and cirrhosis. It has become accepted that nitric oxide serves important functions as aphysiological and pathological factor in liver. It has been showed that the level of nitric oxide of plasma correlated with the seventy of the histological injury of the liver. Based on the speculation, many investigations were performed to evaluate the level of nitric oxide after the ethanol administration. The aim of our study was to reproduce the animal model of alcoholic liver disease, evaluate the levels of nitric oxide and investigate the effects of them on ALD.METHODS:32 Male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomized into four groups. Group 1 (n=8) was a control group which was intragastrically infused with normal saline at 10 ml/kg body weight once per day. The other three groups of rats (n=24) were intragastrically infused with 56% (vol/vol) of ethanol, whose trade name was Hongxing Erguotou produced by Beijing Brevery, at lOml/kg body weight once per day. They were fed for a period of 4, 8 and 12 weeks respectively. At the end of 4, 8 and 12 weeks, a blood sample was collected from each ratthrough the femoral artery, then the rat was killed and liver specimens were obtained for histological examination. A small sample of liver was fixed in 10% formalin and stained with hematoxylin and eosin (H&E). The degree of hepatic steatosis and activity of alcoholic hepatitis were evaluated by means of chemical semi-quantitation. Blood was used for evaluation of the level of nitric oxide.RESULTS:The score of severity of steatosis were 1.63 ?0.51 (n=8, p<0.05 ) , 2.12 + 0.64 (11=8, p<0.01) fO 1.50 + 0.53 (n=8, p<0.05) compared with the control group. The levels of nitric oxide in each group infused with alcohol were 76.35+10.56 fimol/L (P<0.01), 104.17 + 25.59 jamol/L (P<0.01) and 54.30 + 7.41 u.mol/L (P>0.05) compared with that of control group (46.17+ 5.25 umol/L).CONCLUSIONS:The results of this study revealed that chronic alcohol infusion could lead to hepatic steatosis. Alcohol may contribute to significant increase of the level of endogenous nitric oxide. There was significant correlation between the level of nitric oxide and the severity of hepatic steatosis.