Research Paper Volume 13, Issue 23 pp 25377—25392

Tartary buckwheat flavonoids relieve the tendency of mammary fibrosis induced by HFD during pregnancy and lactation

Xingchi Kan1, *, , Juxiong Liu1, *, , Xiangyu Cai1, , Yaping Huang1, , Ping Xu1, , Shoupeng Fu1, , Wenjin Guo1, , Guiqiu Hu1, ,

  • 1 Department of Theoretic Veterinary Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin, China
* Equal contribution

Received: August 23, 2021       Accepted: November 24, 2021       Published: December 10, 2021      

https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.203752
How to Cite

Copyright: © 2021 Kan et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Mammary gland fibrosis is a chronic and irreversible disease. Tartary buckwheat flavonoids (TBF) are a natural product of flavonoid extracts from buckwheat and have a wide range of biological activities. The purpose of this experiment was to explore whether HFD during pregnancy and lactation induces fibrosis of the mammary tissue and whether TBF alleviates the damage caused by HFD, along with its underlying mechanism. The HFD significantly increased the levels of TNF-α, IL-6, IL-1β, and MPO; significantly damaged the integrity of the blood-milk barrier; significantly increased the levels of collagen 1, vimentin and α-SMA, and reduced the level of E-cadherin. However, these effects were alleviated by TBF. Mechanistic studies showed that TBF inhibited the activation of AKT/NF-κB signaling and predicted the AKT amino acid residues that formed hydrogen bonds with TBF; in addition, these studies not only revealed that TBF promoted the expression of the tight junction proteins (TJs) claudin-3, occludin and ZO-1 and inhibited the activation of TGF-β/Smad signaling but also predicted the Smad MH2 amino acid residues that formed hydrogen bonds with TBF. Conclusion: HFD consumption during pregnancy and lactation induced the tendency of mammary fibrosis. TBF alleviated the tendency of mammary fibrosis by inhibiting the activation of AKT/NF-κB, repairing the blood-milk barrier and inhibiting the activation of TGF-β/Smad signaling.

Abbreviations

α-SMA: Alpha-smooth muscle actin; CMC-Na: Carboxymethylcellulose sodium solution; ECM: Extracellular matrix; ELISA: Enzyme linked immunosorbent assay; HFD: High-fat diet; IL-6: Interleukin- 6; IL-1β: Interleukin- 1β; MPO: Myeloperoxidase; AKT: protein kinase B; TBF: Tartary buckwheat flavonoids; TNF-α: Tumor necrosis factor-α.