- Meeting abstract
- Open access
- Published:
Protective effects of berberine on doxorubicin-induced nephrotoxicity in mice
Journal of Translational Medicine volume 10, Article number: A66 (2012)
Background and purpose
Doxorubicin, a very potent and often used anti-cancer drug, is largely limited due to the dose-related toxic effects. The present study investigated whether berberine, a natural product alkaloid, can reduce the renal injury induced by doxorubicin.
Experimental approach
Mice of either gender were randomly divided into four groups: the control group, doxorubicin group, berberine group, and berberine+doxorubicin group. In the tests, body weight, general condition and mortality of the mice were observed, and serum blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and serum albumin (Alb) levels were determined to evaluate renal function. Furthermore, the renal was excised for determination of the weight changes, as well as histopathological analysis in the tissues.
Key results
Mortality rate and significant decline in body weight, and increased blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and serum albumin (Alb) levels were observed in doxorubicin-treated mice. These changes were significantly prevented by pretreatment with berberine. Histopathological studies showed that doxorubicin caused structural injuries, such as glomerular, tubular epithelial alterations and interstitial edema in the renal. These histopathological changes were largely attenuated by berberine pretreatment.
Conclusions
These findings indicate that berberine could play an important role in ameliorating the doxorubicin-induced toxicity.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
About this article
Cite this article
Zhao, X., Tong, N. Protective effects of berberine on doxorubicin-induced nephrotoxicity in mice. J Transl Med 10 (Suppl 2), A66 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1186/1479-5876-10-S2-A66
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1479-5876-10-S2-A66