Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
Br J Pharmacol. 2012 Aug;166(8):2209-11. doi: 10.1111/j.1476-5381.2012.01959.x.
A wide variety of beneficial effects have been attributed to curcumin, a major polyphenol from the golden spice Curcuma longa known as turmeric, including amelioration of severe complications of type 2 diabetes such as hepatic fibrosis, retinopathy, neuropathy and nephropathy. In the present issue of BJP, Lin and colleagues reveal new mechanisms by which curcumin inhibits the activation of hepatic stellate cells in vitro, a hallmark of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis and hepatic fibrogenesis associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus. They demonstrated that curcumin suppresses the advanced glycation end-products (AGEs)-mediated induction of the receptor for AGEs (RAGE) gene expression by increasing PPARγ activity and stimulating de novo synthesis of glutathione. As a result, downstream elements of RAGE-activated pathways are inhibited, which prevents oxidative stress, inflammation and hepatic stellate cell activation. This report suggests that curcumin may have potential as an anti-fibrotic agent in type 2 diabetes and opens the door to the evaluation of curcumin therapeutic effects in liver conditions of different aetiology and in other disorders linked to the impairment of PPARγ activity, such as obesity and atherosclerosis.
This article is a commentary on Lin et al., pp. 2212-2227 of this issue. To view this paper visit http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1476-5381.2012.01910.x.
姜黄，一种来自姜黄的主要多酚，被称为 turmeric，具有多种有益作用，包括改善 2 型糖尿病的严重并发症，如肝纤维化、视网膜病变、神经病变和肾病。在 BJP 的本期中，Lin 及其同事揭示了姜黄抑制体外肝星状细胞激活的新机制，肝星状细胞激活是与 2 型糖尿病相关的非酒精性脂肪性肝炎和肝纤维化的标志。他们表明，姜黄通过增加 PPARγ 活性和刺激谷胱甘肽的从头合成来抑制晚期糖基化终产物 (AGEs)介导的 AGEs 受体 (RAGE)基因表达的诱导。因此，RAGE 激活途径的下游元件被抑制，从而防止氧化应激、炎症和肝星状细胞激活。该报告表明，姜黄可能具有作为 2 型糖尿病抗纤维化剂的潜力，并为评估姜黄在不同病因的肝脏疾病和与 PPARγ 活性受损相关的其他疾病（如肥胖和动脉粥样硬化）中的治疗效果开辟了道路。
本文是 Lin 等人在本期杂志第 2212-2227 页上的评论文章。要查看本文，请访问 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1476-5381.2012.01910.x。
