Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2018. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Sep 28, 2018; 24(36): 4178-4185
Published online Sep 28, 2018. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v24.i36.4178
Mechanism of combined use of vitamin D and puerarin in anti-hepatic fibrosis by regulating the Wnt/β-catenin signalling pathway
Gan-Rong Huang, Si-Jun Wei, Yan-Qiang Huang, Wei Xing, Lu-Yao Wang, Ling-Ling Liang
Gan-Rong Huang, Yan-Qiang Huang, Wei Xing, Lu-Yao Wang, Ling-Ling Liang, Youjiang Medical University for Nationalities, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Baise 533000, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China
Si-Jun Wei, Affiliated Hospital of Youjiang Medical University for Nationalities, Baise 533000, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China
Author contributions: Huang GR and Wei SJ contributed equally to this work; Huang YQ, Wang LY and Liang LL performed the majority of the experiments; Xing W performed the experimental design, writing and analysis.
Supported by Key Laboratory Cultivation Base of Universities in Guangxi (Guangxi Education Research), No. [2014] 6.
Institutional animal care and use committee statement: This study was reviewed and approved by the Youjiang Medical University for Nationalities.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors have no conflict of interest.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
ARRIVE guidelines statement: The manuscript has been revised according to the ARRIVE guidelines.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Wei Xing, MD, Professor, Youjiang Medical University for Nationalities, School of Basic Medical Sciences, 98 Urban-Rural Road, Baise 533000, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China. 116895009@qq.com
Telephone: 18907767511
Received: June 5, 2018
Peer-review started: June 5, 2018
First decision: June 21, 2018
Revised: July 30, 2018
Accepted: August 1, 2018
Article in press: August 1, 2018
Published online: September 28, 2018
Core Tip

Core tip: The proliferation of hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) is associated with hepatic fibrosis. The activated HSCs, as well as Wnt1 and β-catenin, have become important targets in anti-hepatic fibrosis therapy. This research investigated the protective effect of the combined use of vitamin D and puerarin against CCl4-induced hepatic fibrosis in rats. The protective effect of the combined use of vitamin D and puerarin in the progression of hepatic fibrosis is closely associated with the function of silencing the Wnt1/β-catenin pathway, suppressing the activation of HSCs, and decreasing the secretion of collagen fibers, which provided a useful reference for those in clinical practice.