earticle

영어

Lipophilic ammonia is toxic gas and can easily diffuse across cell membranes. Excess ammonia is implicated in the pathogenesis of several metabolic disorders including hepatic encephalopathy and may result in the death. The purpose of this study was to clarify the inhibition effect of metronidazole on liver cell damage due to ammonia in human Hep G2 cell
and rat hepatocytes. The effects of metronidazole were studied in ammonium chloride treated human Hep G2 cell (75 mM) and rat hepatocyte (100 mM) following 0.1 μM metronidazole treatment. In MTZ+AC group, cell viabilities increased prominently and LDH activities decreased over 25% than AC group. Futhermore, ammonia level according to ammonium chloride treatment reduced over 30% and lipid peroxidation as an index of cell membrane damage decreased more than twice. By comparison with control, catalase activity showed more than 30% reduction in AC group while less than 10% reduction in MTZ+AC group, respectively. In addition, MTZ+AC group showed the similar cell structure as control in cell morphology study by using light microscope, and represented fluorescent intensity decrement compared with AC group in fluorescent microscopic study with avidin-TRITC fluorescent dye. And cleaved PARP expression due to ammonia reduced twofold or more in MTZ+AC group. As the results suggest, metronidazole may protect the liver cell by inhibiting cell damages due to ammonia and be used for an effective antagonist of ammonia in hyperammonemia.

한국어

본 연구에서는 암모니아에 의해 손상된 사람의 간세포주 Hep G2 cell과 rat의 hepatocyte에 대하여 metronidazole이 간세포 손상을 억제하는 효과가 있음을 밝혔다. Metronidazole은 암모니아에 의한 세포 생존율 감소, 배지내의 암모니아 수준 및 지질과산화 증가 및 항산화 효소 발현 감소 그리고 세포 내
DNA 손상과 세포사멸을 억제하였다. 따라서 metronidazole은 암모니아로부터 기인하는 세포손상을 감소시켜 간세포 기능을 보호함으로써 간 기능의 저하로 발생한 과암모니아혈증에 효과적인 치료제로서의 가능성을 시사한다.