Protective role of Salvia miltiorrhiza Polysaccharides on Florfenicol Induced Oxidative and Apoptotic Injury of Liver in Broilers

Abstract Salvia miltiorrhiza Polysaccharides (SMPs) can alleviate liver injury in mice, but there are few reports on liver injury of broilers, especially the liver injury caused by antibiotics. To explore the hepatoprotective effects of SMPs against florfenicol (FFC) induced broilers liver injury, the broilers were treated with FFC and SMPs. The results showed SMPs could significantly inhibit the decrease of weight gain and the increase of liver index induced by FFC (P < 0.05). SMPs could significantly reduce the contents of Alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and Aspartate aminotransferase (AST) in serum and the malondialdehyde (MDA), nitric oxide (NO) and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) in liver tissues (P < 0.05), also significantly increased the content of total protein (TP) in serum and superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) in liver tissues (P < 0.05). QPCR and western bolt results showed that SMPs significantly increased the mRNA and protein expression of cytochrome P4501A1 (CYP1A1), cytochrome P4502H1 (CYP2H1), nuclear factor-erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2), heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) and NAD(P)H dehydrogenase quinone-1 (NQO-1) in liver tissue, also significantly reduced the rate of hepatocyte apoptosis and the mRNA and protein expression of p53, cytochrome-C (CytC), caspase-3 in liver tissue (P < 0.05). The results demonstrated that SMPs can inhibit the oxidative stress in hepatocytes by regulating the related proteins in Nrf2 pathway, thereby reducing the apoptosis of hepatocytes, and protecting liver injury.