Therapeutic effect of quercetin for acute gouty arthritis in rats and its influence on liver function

HUANG Jing-qun; LIU Jiu-hong; LI Wei-zhong; CHANG Yu-mei; WANG Chen-yang; LIU Hai-yan

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1002-266X.2015.28.009

Abstract：Objective To observe the therapeutic effect of quercetin for acute gouty arthritis ( AGA) in rats and its influence on liver function.Methods Fifty rats were randomly divided into groups A-E, and 10 in each group.Rats in the group A and group B were administered with distilled water, and rats in the groups C, D and E were administered with 100, 200 and 400 mg/kg quercetin, respectively.All rats were administered by oral gavage once a day for seven consecu-tive days throughout the experiment.On the fifth day, we established AGA models in the groups B-E after administration of 1 h.The rat right hind ankle swelling rate was measured at 0, 2, 6, 12, 24 and 48 h, the serum blood uric acid (UA) was detected at 8 h and 48 h after modeling, the serum ALT, AST, TBIL and DBIL was detected at 48 h after modeling. The liver indexes were calculated and the liver histopathological changes were observed with HE staining.Results The an-kle swelling rates of B-E groups at all time points were increased as compared with that in the group A ( all P<0.01) , but the swelling rates of groups C-E were decreased as compared with that of group B (all P<0.01), and no significant differ-ence was found in the swelling rate among groups C-E (all P>0.05).The serum UA levels of groups B-E after modeling 8 h were elevated as compared with that of the group A (all P<0.01), and there was no significant differences between group A and groups B-E after modeling 48 h (P>0.05);meanwhile, the serum UA was not significantly different between groups B-E (all P>0.05).No significant differences were found in the serum ALT, AST, TBIL, DBIL and liver indexes between each two groups (all P>0.05).Furthermore, no significant pathological changes were found in each group.Con-clusion Quercetin can reduce the joint swelling in AGA rats, but do not decrease the level of serum UA and has no signif-icant effect on liver function.