Improvement effect of Chaihu Shugan powder on activity of inflammatory damaged costal chondrocytes and its mechanism
Objective To observe the improvement effect of Chaihu Shugan powder on the activity of inflammatory damaged costal chondrocytes,and to explore its mechanism.Methods The costal chondrocytes in the logarithmic growth phase were divided into the control group,IL-1β group,and low-dose,medium-dose,and high-dose Chaihu Shugan powder groups,respectively.Costal chondrocytes in the control group were cultured conventionally.In the IL-1β group,40 ng/mL of IL-1β was added into the medium containing costal chondrocytes.Costal chondrocytes in the high-dose group,medium-dose group and low-dose Chaihu Shugan powder groups were added with 40 ng/mL of IL-1β in the me-dium containing costal chondrocytes,and then 80,40,20 μg/mL of Chaihu Shugan powder solution were added,respec-tively.The cells in each group were continued to be cultured for 24 h,then CCK-8 was used to observe the cell activity of each group(expressed by OD value),and Western blotting was used to detect the expression levels of NFκB/NLRP3 sig-naling pathway-related proteins p-NFκB,NLRP3,ASC,and Caspase-1.Results The OD value of the IL-1β group was significantly lower than those of the other groups(all P<0.05),and the OD values of the high-dose and medium-dose Chai-hu Shugan powder groups were higher than those of the other groups(all P<0.05).Compared with the control group,the protein expression levels of p-NFκB,NLRP3,ASC and Caspase-1 in the IL-1β group and low-dose Chaihu Shugan powder group significantly increased(all P<0.05),and the protein expression of P-NFκB in the medium-dose Chaihu Shugan pow-der group also significantly increased(P<0.05).Compared with the IL-1β group,the protein expression levels of P-NFκB,NLRP3,ASC and Caspase-1 in the high-dose and medium-dose Chaihu Shugan powder groups significantly de-creased(all P<0.05),and Caspase-1 protein in the low-dose Chaihu Shugan powder group also significantly decreased(P<0.05).Compared with the low-dose Chaihu Shugan powder group,the protein expression levels of p-NFκB in the high-dose and medium-dose Chaihu Shugan powder groups significantly decreased(all P<0.05),and the protein expression of ASC in the high-dose group significantly decreased(P<0.05).Compared with the medium-dose Chaihu Shugan powder group,the expression of p-NFκB in the high-dose Chaihu Shugan powder group significantly decreased(P<0.05).Con-clusions Chaihu Shugan powder of 40 and 80 μg/mL can enhance the cellular activity of inflammatory damaged costal chondrocytes.The mechanism of Chaihu Shugan powder in improving the activity of inflammatory damaged costal chondro-cytes may be related to regulating the expression of NFκB/NLRP3-Caspase-1 pathway-related proteins.