Effect of β-Carotene on Immunity Function and Tumour Growth in Hepatocellular Carcinoma Rats

Molecules

Bokang Cui¹  Su Liu¹  Qibo Wang¹ 

[1] Department of Hepatobiliary Oncology, Cancer Center, Sun Yat-sen University, 651 Dongfeng East Road, Guangzhou 510060, Guangdong, China ^†These authors contributed equally to this work.

关键词: β-carotene;    immunity function;    extraction;    ALT;    AST;   

DOI  :  10.3390/molecules17078595

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

The aim of the present study was to investigate the anticancer and immunity activity of β-carotene in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) rats. Three days after transplantation, forty Wistar rats were randomly divided into four groups, each group consisting of 10 animals. These groups were control group (untreated), low-dose β-carotene-treated group (20 mg/kg), middle-dose group (40 mg/kg) and high-dose (60 mg/kg) group. β-Carotene-treated groups were fed with β-carotene (20, 40, 60 mg/kg b.w.) orally for 30 days. Control group was treated with the same volume of physiological saline. Another ten rats were served as the normal group. Results showed that 30 days of β-carotene treatment could significantly inhibit tumour growth, enhance blood NK, IL-2, TNF-α, WBC, TP, ALB and A/G levels, and decrease blood ALT, AST and ALP activities in HCC rats. Pathological analysis of liver tissue showed that β-carotene treatment may decrease damage of liver tissue in HCC rats. It can be concluded that β-carotene may improve the immunity function and inhibit tumour growth in HCC rats.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.