Protective Effect of Astaxanthin on Liver Fibrosis through Modulation of TGF-1 Expression and Autophagy

Figure 2

Effect of astaxanthin on BDL-induced liver fibrosis. (a) Astaxanthin decreased the level of ALT, AST, and hydroxyproline with the dose of 80 mg/kg. Data are expressed as mean ± SD (𝑛=10, ^∗𝑃<0.05 for BDL + AST(80) versus BDL). (b) Astaxanthin (80 mg/kg) ameliorated pathological change showed by H&E and Masson’s trichrome (MT) (original magnification: ×200). The areas of positive staining with MT were analyzed by Image-pro Plus 6.0. There existed a significant decrease with astaxanthin (80 mg/kg) treatment (𝑛=10, ^∗𝑃<0.05 for BDL + AST(80) versus BDL). (c) The analysis of western blotting and real-time PCR showed that astaxanthin obviously decreased the expression of 𝛼-SMA, 𝛽-pdfgr, and collagen I with the doses of 80 mg/kg in BDL model (𝑛=3, ^∗𝑃<0.05 for BDL + AST(80) versus BDL).

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