Biotherapeutics and Bioanalytical Techniques

Liver fi brosis is the wound healing response to a variety of acute or chronic stimuli, for instance viral infection, toxins and metabolic diseases. Th e pattern of hepatic stellate cell activation provides an important framework to pinpoint

sites of antifi brotic therapy. IFN exhibit a wide spectrum of biological activities in target cells including antiviral, immunomodulatory, anti angiogenic and growth-inhibitory eff ects. Th e antiproliferative eff ects of IFN are the rational basis for their use in the treatment of metastatic malignant melanoma and renal cell carcinoma. Th e food use of S. oleraceus is justifi ed

by the high content of vit. C, fl avonoids and phenolics. Th e previous studies discussed the antifi brotic eff ect of IFN and S. oleraceus individually on liver fi brosis but in this study the combination treatment has been studied well in the induced liver fi brosis models. Using diff erent immunoassays, histopathol-ogy, colorimetric and PCR techniques results obtained showed that TAA causes hepatic fi brosis by induction of free radical production and decrease cellular antioxidant stores. Th e different treatment ways including combination treatment group showed a signifi cant inhibi-tory eff ect in targeting hepatic fi brosis by reducing oxidative stress, increasing the activity of antioxidant enzymes and by inhibiting HSCs infl ammation, activation

and proliferation through increasing the levels of antifi brotic co-transcription factor PPAR-γ and decrease the levels of the main HSCs fi brogenic cytokines TGFβ1 and PDGF-BB. In conclusion, bio-chemical, molecular and histopathological fi ndings demonstrated that the combination treatment improved the antifi brotic eff ect better than the individual one, the prophylactic usage of SE protected against hepatic fi brosis and SE had no side eff ect.