Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic and systemic autoimmune disease, which affects approximately 1% adult population in the worldwide.
The present study was to investigate the anti-arthritic effect of berberine and its involved mechanism in Freund's complete adjuvant (FCA) induced arthritis rats.
Rats were divided randomly into control, FCA, tripterysium glycosides, berberine (75 and 150mg/kg). The apparent indicators, including changes of body weights, paw swelling degrees and arthritis indexes, were analyzed to evaluate anti-arthritic effect of berberine. The levels of IL-6, IL-10, IL-17 and TGF-β in serum were measured by ELISA. Histopathological changes and immunohistochemical expression of anti-IL-10 and anti-IL-17 antibodies in ankle joint tissues were examined.
Berberine obviously suppressed the severity of RA rats by attenuating the apparent indicators as mentioned above. Meanwhile, berberine significantly decreased the levels of IL-6 and IL-17, and increased the levels of IL-10 and TGF-β. Histopathological examinations indicated that berberine attenuated the synovial hyperplasia and inflammatory cell infiltration in joint tissues. In addition, immunohistochemical results showed that the amount of anti-IL-10 antibody increased, while the amount of anti-IL-17 antibody decreased in ankle tissues of arthritis rats.
Our results showed that berberine exerted a superior anti-arthritic effect and the mechanism maybe involve the balance between Treg and Th17 cells.