Acetaminophen (APAP)-induced liver injury (AILI) is a common liver disease in clinical practice. Only one clinically approved drug, N -acetylcysteine (NAC), for the treatment of AILI is available in clinics, but novel treatment strategies are still needed due to the complicated pathological changes of AILI and the side effects of NAC. Here, we found that astaxanthin (ASX) can prevent AILI through the Nrf2/HO-1 pathway. After treatment with ASX, there was a positive activation of the Nrf2/HO-1 pathway in AILI models both in vivo and in vitro accompanied by enhanced autophagy and reduced ferroptosis. In APAP-challenged L02 liver cells, ASX reduced autophagy and enhanced apoptosis of the cells. Furthermore, we developed ASX-loaded hollow mesoporous silica nanoparticles (HMSN@ASX) to improve the aqueous solubility of ASX and targeted delivery of ASX to the liver and then significantly improve the therapeutic effects. Taken together, we found that ASX can protect against AILI by activating the Nrf2/HO-1 pathway, which mainly affects oxidative stress, autophagy, and ferroptosis processes, and the HMSN@ASX nanosystem can target the liver to enhance the treatment efficiency of AILI.
Keyphrases
- oxidative stress
- cell death
- induced apoptosis
- cell cycle arrest
- endoplasmic reticulum stress
- signaling pathway
- pi k akt
- ischemia reperfusion injury
- diabetic rats
- dna damage
- clinical practice
- transcription factor
- primary care
- drug delivery
- combination therapy
- liver injury
- cancer therapy
- replacement therapy
- highly efficient
- smoking cessation
- walled carbon nanotubes