Effects of treatment with Astragalus Membranaceus on function of rat leydig cells

BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Research Article

Xiaolei Yao¹  Lihua Lv¹  Miaomiao Zhao¹  Yang Huang¹  Jianwei Chen¹  Xia Cao¹  Yan Liu¹  Xiaolong Jiang¹  Jinzhu Meng¹  Jianbo Yao²  George W Smith³  Pengfei Li⁴  Zhiyan Li⁵ 

[1] College of Animal Science and Technology, Shanxi Agricultural University, No.1 Mingxian Nan Road, 030801, Taigu, China;College of Animal Science and Technology, Shanxi Agricultural University, No.1 Mingxian Nan Road, 030801, Taigu, China;Division of Animal and Nutritional Sciences, West Virginia University, 26506, Morgantown, WV, USA;College of Animal Science and Technology, Shanxi Agricultural University, No.1 Mingxian Nan Road, 030801, Taigu, China;Laboratory of Mammalian Reproductive Biology and Genomics, Michigan State University, 48824, East Lansing, MI, USA;Departments of Animal Science, Michigan State University, 48824, East Lansing, MI, USA;Departments of Animal Physiology, Michigan State University, 48824, East Lansing, MI, USA;College of Life Science, Shanxi Agricultural University, 030801, Taigu, Shanxi, China;Pharmaceutical Analysis Laboratory of Fudan University, 200000, Shanghai, China;

关键词: Astragalus membranaceus;    Leydig cell;    SOD and GPx;    Bax;    Bcl-2;    Testosterone;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12906-015-0776-3

 received in 2015-03-25, accepted in 2015-07-13,  发布年份 2015

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundAstragalus membranaceus (AM) is a Chinese traditional herb which has been reported to have broad positive effects on many diseases, including hepatitis, heart disease, diabetes and skin disease. AM can promote cell proliferation, increase the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GPx), and inhibit apoptosis by regulating the transcription of proto-oncogenes controlling cell death. While AM is included in some commercially available “testosterone boosting supplements”, studies directly testing ability of AM to modulate testosterone production are lacking. In the present study, we examined the effects of AM on Leydig cell function in vitro.MethodsRat Leydig cells were purified and treated with AM at different concentrations (0 μg/mL, 10 μg/mL, 20 μg/mL, 50 μg/mL, 100 μg/mL and 150 μg/mL) and cell counting-8 (CCK-8) assay, Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, quantitative real time PCR and analysis of activities of SOD and GPx were done respectively.ResultsTreatment with 100 μg/mL (P < 0.05) and 150 μg/mL AM (P < 0.01) significantly increased Leydig cell numbers. Treatment with AM (20 μg/mL, 50 μg/mL and 100 μg/mL) significantly increased testosterone production (P < 0.01). In addition, increased Leydig cell SOD and GPx activities were observed in response to 20 μg/mL and 50 μg/mL AM treatment (P < 0.01). Furthermore, expression of Bax mRNA was significantly decreased (P < 0.01), and the ratio of Bcl-2/Bax mRNA was significantly increased in response to 20 μg/mL AM in the culture medium (P < 0.05).ConclusionsResults supported a beneficial effect of AM on multiple aspects of rat Leydig cell function in vitro including testosterone production.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Jiang et al. 2015. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.