OBJECTIVETo investigate the effect of Fuzheng Huayu decoction (FHD) intervention on hepatic fibrosis.

METHODSWistar rats were randomly divided into 3 groups: rats in the normal group only treated with subcutaneous injection of saline, rats in the model group and the FHD group were made into hepatic fibrosis by subcutaneous injection of 40% carbon tetrachloride (CCl4)-olive solution and then those in the FHD group were treated with FHD by gastric perfusion after modeling. Liver samples of the rats were obtained for routine pathological observation, hydroxyproline determination and proteome quantitative determination. After then, the proteome profile was obtained through 2-dimensional electrophoresis and silver staining, and analyzed. More than 30 proteins with different expression were identified by MALDI-TOF-MS.

RESULTS(1) The integral response of vital movement such as body weight and activity of hepatic fibrosis declined in the CCl4 induced liver fibrosis rats; (2) Liver fibrosis were associated with abnormal metabolism; (3) There were four material metabolism-related protein showed by hepatic proteome mass spectrography, which expressed different between the normal and the fibrotic rats, i. e. the perchloric acid soluble protein, the phosphatidylinositol transferase, the phosphoglycerate kinase and the endoplasmic reticulum-60 protease; (4) The expressions of the above-mentioned four proteins in the FHD group were nearly the same as those of normal level.

CONCLUSION(1) Liver fibrosis is accompanied with abnormal protein synthesis and decomposition, as well as the enhanced activity of glycolysis; (2) The existence of metabolism-related proteins is one of the elements for the liver in regulating metabolism; (3) The regulation on the expressions of metablism-related proteins is one of the pathways for FHD to exert its anti-hepatic fibrosis effect.