Research Paper Volume 12, Issue 7 pp 6058—6066
Aspirin alleviates hepatic fibrosis by suppressing hepatic stellate cells activation via the TLR4/NF-κB pathway
- 1 The Fifth Department of Chemotherapy, Affiliated Tumor Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Nanning 530021, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China
- 2 Guangxi Key laboratory of Regenerative Medicine, Guangxi Medical University, Nanning 530021, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China
- 3 Division of Spinal Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Nanning 530021, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China
Received: August 18, 2019 Accepted: February 8, 2020 Published: April 13, 2020
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.103002How to Cite
Copyright © 2020 Liu et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Hepatic fibrosis arises from a sustained wound-healing response to chronic liver injury. Because the occurrence and development of hepatic fibrosis is always associated with chronic inflammation, controlling inflammation within the liver may be an effective means of controlling the development and progression of hepatic fibrosis. Aspirin is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug used to relieve both inflammatory symptoms and pain. The results of our study showed that aspirin significantly attenuated hepatic inflammation and fibrosis. Aspirin effectively inhibited the activation and proliferation of hepatic stellate cells (HSCs), which led to downregulation of inflammatory factors, including IL-6 and TNF-α in those cells. Aspirin also downregulated expression of Toll-like receptor-4 (TLR4) on HSCs, as well as its downstream mediators, MyD88 and NF-κB. The results of our study demonstrate aspirin’s potential to inhibit the development of hepatic fibrosis and the molecular mechanism by which it acts. They suggest aspirin may be an effective therapeutic agent for the treatment of hepatic fibrosis.