Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. May 7, 2023; 29(17): 2616-2627
Published online May 7, 2023. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v29.i17.2616
Cryptotanshinone induces apoptosis of activated hepatic stellate cells via modulating endoplasmic reticulum stress
Xiao-Xue Hou, Yu-Wen Li, Jia-Li Song, Wen Zhang, Rui Liu, Hui Yuan, Tian-Tong Feng, Zheng-Yi Jiang, Wen-Ting Li, Chuan-Long Zhu
Xiao-Xue Hou, Jia-Li Song, Wen Zhang, Hui Yuan, Tian-Tong Feng, Zheng-Yi Jiang, Chuan-Long Zhu, Department of Infectious Disease, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 210009, Jiangsu Province, China
Yu-Wen Li, Department of Pediatrics, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 210009, Jiangsu Province, China
Rui Liu, Wen-Ting Li, Department of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Hainan Medical University, Haikou 570000, Hainan Province, China
Author contributions: Zhu CL and Hou XX designed the research; Hou XX, Li YW and Song JL performed the research; Li WT analyzed data and wrote the article; Zhang W and Feng TT checked the statistical calculations; Yuan H, Liu R and Jiang ZY commented on and revised the paper; all authors have read and approved the final paper.
Supported by Science and Technology Plan of Hainan Province (Clinical Research Center), No. LCYX202103 and No. LCYX202204; Hainan Province Science and Technology Special Fund, No. ZDYF2022SHFZ067; and Hainan Province Clinical Medical Center.
Institutional animal care and use committee statement: All procedures involving animals were reviewed and approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University (IACUC protocol number: IACUC-2209028).
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: All data generated or analyzed supporting conclusions are included in the current manuscript.
ARRIVE guidelines statement: The authors have read the ARRIVE Guidelines, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the ARRIVE Guidelines.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (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: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Chuan-Long Zhu, Founder, Professor, Department of Infectious Disease, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, No. 300 Guangzhou Road, Nanjing 210009, Jiangsu Province, China. zhuchuanlong@jsph.org.cn
Received: November 4, 2022
Peer-review started: November 4, 2022
First decision: February 18, 2023
Revised: February 28, 2023
Accepted: April 10, 2023
Article in press: April 10, 2023
Published online: May 7, 2023
Core Tip

Core Tip: Hepatic fibrosis is a necessary stage of liver cirrhosis, and there is currently no effective treatment. Cryptotanshinone (CPT), one of the extracts of Chinese herbal medicine Radix Salviae Miltiorrhizae, has a good anti-fibrosis effect. Through this study, we found that CPT can treat hepatic fibrosis by activating endoplasmic reticulum stress and leading to apoptosis of hepatic stellate cells, which provides a new method for the treatment of hepatic fibrosis.