Effects Of Cordyceps Sinensis And Tripterygium Wilfordii Polyglycosidium On The Podocytes In Rats With Diabetic Nephropathy

Objective：Diabetic Nephropathy (DN) is one of serious complications of Diabetes Mellitus (DM)and the leading cause of death in patients with DM. Proteinuria is an early clinical signof DN and an important factor in increasing kidney damage. It is reported that DN isclosely related with podocyte injury, the structural changes and (or) abnormalexpression of a variety of protein molecules, such as Nephrin and Podocin in adjacentslit diaphragm (SD) is closely related with the production of proteinuria.Cordyceps Sinensis (CS) belongs to Claviceps paspali, fungus, Cordy Ceps SinensisSall, it is rich in amino acids, polysaccharides, organic acids, trace elements,nucleosides, peptides and steroids and other chemicals. Through the regulation ofimmune function, regulation of renal cell proliferation and extracellular matrix synthesis,regulation of cytokine and growth factor, antagonistic ischemia and toxic renal injury,and improvement of metabolism and other multi-target, multi-link mechanism, it willreduce proteinuria, improve renal function, and relieve renal pathology, etc.Tripterygium Wilfordii Plyglycosidium (TWP) is a traditional Chinese herbal medicine,it has been used in variety of autoimmune diseases because its immunologicsuppression function.This paper is designed to establish rat model of DN to observe how CS and TWPinfluence DN rat podocytes, renal pathological changes and Nphrin and Podocinchanges in protein expression, and to discuss the possible protection mechanism of DNrat renal podocytes from CS and TWP.Methods：Rat models of DN were established and they were divided randomly into normal control group(Group A)，DN group (Group B),CS group (Group C), TWP group(Group D),CScombined with TWP group(Group E).24h urinary protein quality, BUN, Scr, whiteblood cell (WBC）, Blood glucose （BG）, AST，ALT and kidney weight （KW）/body weight （BW） were determined after12weeks. The renal pathological changeswere evaluated by HE staining. The structural changes of podocytes were observed bytransmission electron microscope. The expressions of nephrin and podocin wereevaluated by immunofluorescence staining.Results1.Compared with the group A, the levels of the Scr, BUN were higher(P＜0.05); andthe BG、KW／BW and24hpro were obviously higher(P＜0.01)；There were glomerulardisorder, chronic tubulointerstitiul damage and glomerular podocyte lesion in group B,C, D and E; the expression of the massive cortical Nephrin and Podocin protein wereless.2.Compared with the group B, the KW／BW and24hpro in group C,D and E werelower(P＜0.01); The pathomorphological improvements were exhibited in glomerulus,tubules and podocytes; the protein expressions of Nephrin and Podocin were higher innephridial tissue.3. The decreasing of KW／BW and24hpro and the improvements of glomerulardisorder, chronic tubulointerstitiul damage and glomerular podocyte lesion were allchanged in group C，D and E, the most significant change happened in group E.ConclusionCS and TWP have protective effect on podocyte of diabetic nephropathy rats. CScombied with TWP will increase the protective effect. The mechanisms may involve theup-regulative expressions of nephrin and podocin.