Huangkui capsule attenuates renal fibrosis in diabetic nephropathy rats through regulating oxidative stress and p38MAPK/Akt pathways, compared to alpha-lipoic acid

摘要

Ethnopharmacological relevance: In traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), Abelmoschus manihot (L) medic (AM) is a natural medicinal plant used for the treatment of inflammatory diseases. Recently, Huangkui capsule (HKC), a Chinese patent medicine extracted from AM, has been widely applied to the clinical therapy of renal fibrosis in patients with early diabetic nephropathy (DN). However, the therapeutic mechanisms involved in vivo remain ambiguous. The goal of this study is to expound the mechanism in vivo of HKC in order to deepen the understanding of its clinical effects, by using the approaches of contrasting the dose-effects of HKC on oxidative stress (OS) in the kidney compared to alpha-lipoic acid (LA), and then demonstrating whether and how anti-oxidative properties of HKC or IA might be beneficial for the treatment of renal fibrosis in vivo.