Berberine ameliorates chronic kidney disease through inhibiting the production of gut-derived uremic toxins in the gut microbiota.

Libin Pan; Hang YU; Jie FU; Jiachun HU; Hui XU; Zhengwei Zhang; Mengmeng BU; Xinyu Yang; Haojian Zhang; Jinyue LU; Jiandong Jiang; Yan Wang

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Berberine ameliorates chronic kidney disease through inhibiting the production of gut-derived uremic toxins in the gut microbiota.

Author: Libin PAN ¹ ; Hang YU ¹ ; Jie FU ¹ ; Jiachun HU ¹ ; Hui XU ¹ ; Zhengwei ZHANG ¹ ; Mengmeng BU ¹ ; Xinyu YANG ¹ ; Haojian ZHANG ¹ ; Jinyue LU ¹ ; Jiandong JIANG ¹ ; Yan WANG ¹
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1. State Key Laboratory of Bioactive Substance and Function of Natural Medicines, Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences/Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100050, China.
Publication Type:Journal Article
Keywords: Berberine; Chronic kidney disease; Clostridium; Gut microbiota; Gut–kidney axis; Uremic toxins; p-Cresol; p-Cresol sulfate
From: Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica B 2023;13(4):1537-1553
CountryChina
Language:English
Abstract: At present, clinical interventions for chronic kidney disease are very limited, and most patients rely on dialysis to sustain their lives for a long time. However, studies on the gut-kidney axis have shown that the gut microbiota is a potentially effective target for correcting or controlling chronic kidney disease. This study showed that berberine, a natural drug with low oral availability, significantly ameliorated chronic kidney disease by altering the composition of the gut microbiota and inhibiting the production of gut-derived uremic toxins, including p-cresol. Furthermore, berberine reduced the content of p-cresol sulfate in plasma mainly by lowering the abundance of g_Clostridium_sensu_stricto_1 and inhibiting the tyrosine-p-cresol pathway of the intestinal flora. Meanwhile, berberine increased the butyric acid producing bacteria and the butyric acid content in feces, while decreased the renal toxic trimethylamine N-oxide. These findings suggest that berberine may be a therapeutic drug with significant potential to ameliorate chronic kidney disease through the gut-kidney axis.