• Journal of Acupuncture Research
• /
• v.15 no.2
• /
• pp.135-145
• /
• 1998

Bupleury radix has been used for the treatment of fever, liver disease, inflammation in traditional medicine. The present study was carried out to evaluate the antioxidant effects of Bupleury radix aqua-acupuncture solution (BRAS) in vitro. Oxygen derived free radicals produced in the course of normal aerobic life, such as superoxide anion radical($O_2^-$ ), hydroxyl radicaI( OH), hydrogen peroxide($H_2O_2$) and singlet oxygen($^1O_2$) can attack polyunsaturated fatty acid in cell membranes, enzymes, other cell compounds, and give rise to lipid peroxidation, DNA damage, lipofuscin accumulation, structure alteration of cell membrane and cell death. In this study, antioxidant effects of BRAS on lipid peroxidation were determined according to the method of TBA. BRAS inhibited markedly peroxidation of linoleic acid during the autoxidation, and also inhibited lipid peroxidation induced by hydroxyl radical derived from $H_2O_2-Fe^{2+}$ in rat liver homogenate. And BRAS showed 30% scavenging effect on DPPH radical, also exhibited a 30% inhibitory effect on superoxide generation from xanthine-xanthine oxidase system. In addition, BRAS protected the cell death induced by tert-butyl hydroperoxide(t-BHP) and significantly increased cell viability in the normal rat liver cell(Ac2F).