RESUMEN
Lindera aggregata, a member belongs to the genus Lindera of Lauraceae family. Its roots and leaves have been used as traditional Chinese medicine or functional food for thousands of years. However, its mitochondrial genome has not been explored. Our aim is to sequence and assemble the mitogenome of L. aggregata to elucidate the genetic mechanism and evolutionary pathway. The results had shown that the mitogenome was extremely complex and had a unique multi-branched conformation with total size of 912,473 bp. Comprehensive analysis of protein coding genes of 7 related species showed that there were 40 common genes in their mitogenome. Interestingly, positive selection had become an important factor in the evolution of ccmB, ccmFC, rps10, rps11 and rps7 genes. Furthermore, our data highlighted the repeated trend of homologous fragment migrations between chloroplast and mitochondrial organelles, and 38 homologous fragments were identified. Phylogenetic analysis identified a tree that was basically consistent with the phylogeny of Laurales species described in the APG IV system. To sum up, this study will be helpful to the study of population genetics and evolution of Lindera species.
RESUMEN
The protective effects of puerarin on liver damage were evaluated by carbon tetrachloride (CCl4)-induced hepatotoxicity in rats. Male rats were orally treated with puerarin daily, and received CCl4 intraperitoneally twice a week for 4 weeks. Our results showed that puerarin at doses of 50, 100, and 200 mg/kg b. w. significantly reduced the elevated activities of serum alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase, alkaline phosphatase, and lactate dehydrogenase at least 15%, 17%, 14% and 18%, respectively. In addition, puerarin at different doses significantly decreased (p<0.05) the level of hepatic thiobarbituric acid reactive substances compared to the CCl4-treated group. Furthermore, the treatment of puerarin was also found to significantly increase the activities of superoxide dismutase, catalase, glutathione peroxidase, glutathione reductase, glutathione-S-transferase, and glutathione content at least 40%, 12%, 25%, 52%, 17% and 44% in the liver of CCl4-treated rats, respectively. Liver histopathology also showed that puerarin reduced the incidence of liver lesions induced by CCl4. The results suggest that puerarin exhibits potent hepatoprotective effects on CCl4-induced liver damages in rats, and that the hepatoprotective effects of puerarin may be due to both the inhibition of lipid peroxidation and to increase of antioxidant enzymes activity.