| Abstract: | Scutellaria baicalensis is widely cultivated in eastern Asia, particularly in China. In the present study, we isolated baicalin from this plant and studied for its hepatoprotective activity against CCl4-induced oxidative damage in rats. Our findings revealed that baicalin exhibited strong antioxidant activity in vitro. In established in vivo tests, baicalin showed effective protective effects by reducing the elevated levels of glutamate pyruvate transaminase(ALT), aspartate aminotransferase(AST), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), total bilirubin (TB) and malondialdehyde (MDA) against CCl4-induced damage, and it restored the activities antioxidant defense substances, such as superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) and glutathione (GSH), toward their normal levels. These data were supplemented with histopathological examination of rat liver sections. The results demonstrated that baicalin could be proposed to protect the liver against CCl4-induced oxidative damage in rats, and the possible underlying mechanism of the activity could be due to its free radical-scavenging and antioxidant activity. |
