Effects of Jwagwieum on Renal Dysfunction in Ischemia/Reperfusion‐induced Acute Renal Failure in Rats

Abstract

Jwagwieum ( , JGE), a Korean traditional medicine, has been used for treatment of kidney‐yin deficient ( ) syndrome. However, there is no pharmacological study of JGE on ischemia/reperfusion‐induced acute renal failure (ARF). Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate whether JGE ameliorates renal function and its related mechanism in acute kidney injury‐induced by ischemia/reperfusion in rats. In this experiment, 5‐week‐old male Sprague Dawley (SD) rats were used under 12 h light and dark cycle. After a week of adaptation, they were randomly divided into following groups. 1) Cont. (Control), 2) ischemia/reperfusion injury (ARF), 3) ARF + JGE100 (100 mg/kg/day), 4) ARF + JGE200 (200 mg/kg/day). The ARF group was subjected to reperfusion after inserting a clip into the renal artery for 45 min. ARF + JGE100 group was orally administered with JGE 100 mg/kg/day after ischemia/reperfusion surgery, and ARF + JGE200 group was orally administered with JGE 200 mg/kg/day for 4 days, respectively. As a result, JGE suppressed the increase of kidney size in the acute renal failure animal model and alleviated polyuria symptoms. In addition, solute‐free water reabsorption (TcH2O) and creatinine clearance (Ccr), indicators of glomerular filtration rate, were significantly increased in JGE group compared with those of ARF rats. In ARF group, blood urea nitrogen (BUN)/creatinine (Cr) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) were significantly increased compared to the control group, respectively, while they were significantly decreased in JGE group. The present results also showed that JGE improved the morphological aspects of renal tissue and ameliorated fibrosis in ARF group. Inflammation is one of the main causes of ischemic acute kidney injury and was inhibited by JGE, which was confirmed by the NLRP3 inflammasome decline. The present results showed that JGE has protective effects against inflammatory process via inhibition of NLRP3 signal pathway, which is associated with improvement of renal function in rats with ARF. These results suggest that JGE has a therapeutic effect on acute kidney injury‐induced by ischemia/reperfusion in rats. Support or Funding Information This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIP) (2017R1A5A2015805)(2015M3A9A5030620)(2017R1A2B4009884).