The Effect Of Kudzu Root On The Intestinal Flora,Substance Metabolism,the Expression Of Cytokines And The Preliminary Evaluation Of Its Safety

Kudzu root, the root of Pueraria lobata(Willd.) Ohwi, known as ‘South Ge and North Shen', has a very high nutritional and pharmaceutical value, can be used as food and medicine. However, effect and safety evaluation of kudzu root remains poorly understood. Therefore, we investigated the effect of kudzu root on the intestinal system and evaluated the safety of kudzu root.In the present work, mice were administrated with kudzu root for 28 days, the effect of kudzu root on the composition and the function of intestinal flora were studied by the viable cell counting, fluorescent quantitative PCR, physiological and biochemical analysis. The results revealed that kudzu root significantly increased the number of Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus, significantly reduced the number of Bacteroides and Enterobacteriaceae(p<0.05). Kudzu root significantly enhanced acid tolerance of aerobic bacteria(p<0.05) and significantly reduced acid tolerance of anaerobic bacteria(p<0.05), significantly reduced bile tolerance of intestine flora, significantly enhanced antioxidant ability of intestine flora(p<0.05). Kudzu root also regulated carbohydrate and lipid metabolism, improved protein metabolism. The changes in the function can be attributed to the changes in the composition of intestinal flora.In order to further understand the effects of kudzu root on the intestinal tissue and efficacy of the routine, we evaluated the effect of kudzu root on the functional genes of intestinal epithelial cells by co-incubation of kudzu root with intestinal epithelial cells. The results showed that the key factors related to immune regulation(such as IL-10, IL-8 etc), cytoskeleton structure(such as GAB2, PAK etc), cell proliferation and tumor formation(such as TGF?, ERBIN etc) changed in different levels. Thus, kudzu root can play an important role in the physiological processes by regulating the functional genes.Finally, we evaluated the hepatotoxicity of kudzu root by animal and cell culture experiment. The results showed that kudzu root increased the level of serum ALT and AST and induced most hepatocyte swelling, distortion and necrosis. Kudzu root and puerarin induced the increase of LDH leakage for Hep G2 cells and mice hepatocytes, significantly up-regulated the mRNA expression of Mt1 and Bax(p<0.05). Thus, kudzu root may be hepatotoxic, puerarin as its major ingredient might induce liver damage.The results is beneficial to reveal the mechanism for pharmaceutical action of kudzu root. It is helpful for us to further understand the safety of the traditional Chinese medicines. It provides theoretical basis for the rational use of kudzu root and promotes the development and utilization of kudzu root.