Evaluation of Hepatotoxicity of the Extract of Green Walnut Husks (Juglans regia L.) in Mice by a Metabonomic Approach

Abstract

This work was designed to delineate the comprehensive metabolic changes of hepatotoxicity in mice induced by the extract of green walnut husks (Juglans regia L.) (GWHs). A metabonomic strategy based on high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is performed to characterize the metabolic profiling of mice feeding with GWHs extracts at a single dose of 40 mg/kg for ten consecutive days. Investigations on stability and precision of the established metabolic profiles indicated that the method was well controlled and reliable. Acquired chromatographic data sets were subjected to principal component analysis (PCA) and orthogonal partial least square-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) for differentiating the feeding and the control mice. Six metabolites which have significant contributions to the classification were selected by the variable importance for the projection value. The results indicated that energy metabolism was decelerated, while the creatinine level in serum was significantly decreased. Histopathological slices of liver feeding with GWHs extract showed obviously vacuolization and dilation in the cell sap. We believe that metabonomic approach based on chromatography is helpful to further reveal the toxicity of some medicine.