Protection of a polysaccharide from Salvia miltiorrhiza, a Chinese medicinal herb, against immunological liver injury in mice

This study was designed to evaluate the hepatoprotective effects of S. miltiorrhiza polysaccharides (SMPS) in immunological liver injury induced by Bacille-Calmette-Guerin (BCG) and lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in mice. SMPS effectively improved the liver index, spleen index and thymus index, reduced the serum levels of alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase and nitric oxide, and restored liver homogenate contents of tumor necrosis factor-alpha and interleukin-1 beta. The histopathological analysis suggested that SMPS reduced the degree of liver injury. The results suggest that SMPS play a protective role against immunological liver injury, which may have important implications for our understanding on the immunoregulatory mechanisms of polysaccharides. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.