Diabetic nephropathy (DN) is a chronic kidney disease caused by the long-term loss of renal function, which occurs in 20% - 40% of all diabetes and is also the primary cause of end-stage renal diseases. DN is related with other lethal diseases, particularly cardiovascular diseases, leading to an increased risk of death. Therefore, an effective treatment for DN is required. Here we tested the protective effect of dioscin in a mouse model of streptozocin (STZ)-induced DN. First, STZ was intraperitoneally injected into C57BL/6 J mice and TLR4-/- mice respectively, on a daily basis for 5 days to induce diabetes. Dioscin was then orally administered into diabetic mice daily for 8 weeks. Our results show that STZ injection effectively induced diabetes in mice as indicated by the increased blood glucose levels in C57BL/6 J mice, whereas it did not cause diabetes in TLR4-/- mice. Dioscin significantly ameliorated STZ-induced renal damage via reducing inflammatory responses in diabetic mice and antagonizing the activation of TLR4/NF-κB pathway and the production of inflammatory cytokines. In conclusion, our study highlights the potential of dioscin as a novel approach to treat DN in diabetic patients.

中文翻译：

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薯蓣皂苷通过 TLR4/NF-κB 通路抑制小鼠肾脏炎症，从而预防糖尿病肾病。

糖尿病肾病（DN）是由肾功能长期丧失引起的慢性肾脏疾病，占所有糖尿病的20%~40%，也是终末期肾病的主要原因。DN 与其他致命疾病有关，尤其是心血管疾病，导致死亡风险增加。因此，需要对DN进行有效的治疗。在这里，我们在链脲佐菌素 (STZ) 诱导的 DN 小鼠模型中测试了薯蓣素的保护作用。首先，将 STZ 分别腹腔注射到 C57BL/6 J 小鼠和 TLR4-/- 小鼠中，每天注射 5 天以诱导糖尿病。然后每天向糖尿病小鼠口服薯蓣皂苷，持续 8 周。我们的结果表明，如 C57BL/6 J 小鼠的血糖水平升高所示，STZ 注射有效地诱导了小鼠的糖尿病，而它不会在 TLR4-/- 小鼠中引起糖尿病。薯蓣皂苷通过减少糖尿病小鼠的炎症反应和拮抗 TLR4/NF-κB 通路的激活和炎症细胞因子的产生，显着改善 STZ 诱导的肾损伤。总之，我们的研究强调了薯蓣皂苷作为治疗糖尿病患者 DN 的新方法的潜力。