Bushen Huoxue Recipe Inhibits Renal Fibrosis by Regulating the Reactive Oxygen Species/Nucleotide-Binding Oligomerization Domain-Like Receptor Family Pyrin Domain-Containing 3-Induced Pyroptosis Pathway

Abstract

To probe the role and specific mechanism of Bushen Huoxue Recipe in inhibiting renal fibrosis (RF), 150 healthy adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomized to sham operated group (SO group), model group (UUO group), conventional treatment group (UUO+EPL group), high-dose Bushen Huoxuefang group (UUO+H group), and low-dose Bushen Huoxue Recipe group (UUO+L group), with 30 mice in each group. The UUO, UUO+EPL, UUO+H, and UUO+L groups showed decreased pathological damage scores in rat renal tissue and increased blood urea nitrogen (BUN), serum creatinine (Cr), interleukin-1β (IL-1β), IL-18, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), and caspase-1 levels compared with the SO group. The expression of NLRP3, type III collagen (Col-III), matrix fibronectin (FN), and α-smooth actin (α-SMA) increased (P <0.05). Inflammatory cells aggregated in rat kidney tissue, and some renal tubular cells atrophied, fell off, vacuolized, underwent pyknosis, and the shape of tubules was incomplete. The lumen was enlarged, and the DNA damage was greater. The UUO+EPL, UUO+H and UUO+L groups showed increased pathological damage score of rat renal tissue and decreased expression levels of Cr, BUN, hs-CRP, IL-1β, IL-18, caspase-1, NLRP3, FN, Col-III, and α-SMA than UUO group. After a longer period, the UUO+EPL and UUO+H groups decreased more significantly than the UUO+L group. We conclude that Bushen Huoxue Recipe inhibits RF by regulating reactive oxygen species (ROS)/NLRP3-induced pyroptosis pathway.