• Yuping Chen, Jing Chen, Ming Jiang, Yingxue Fu, Yihui Zhu, Ni Jiao, Liping Liu, Qiu Du, Hongyan Wu, Huiqin Xu, and Jihu Sun.
• Department of Basic Medical Science, Jiangsu Vocational College of Medicine, Yancheng, Jiangsu Province, China; College of Pharmacy, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China; Chemistry and Life Science College, Nanjing University Jinling College, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China.
• Life Sci. 2020 Jul 1; 252: 117653.

Background/AimsRehmanniae Radix (RR) and Cornus officinalis (CO) are a typical herbal pair used to treat diabetic nephropathy (DN) in clinical practice. DN can be effectively treated by catalpol (Cat) and loganin (Log), the main active components of RR and CO respectively, through combating apoptosis, oxidative stress and inflammation. Herein, a spontaneous DN and podocyte injury model induced by advanced glycation end products (AGEs), i.e. KK-Ay mice, was used to explore the cooperative effects of Log and Cat on DN and the mechanism targeting the AGEs-RAGE (receptor for AGE) pathway.Methods And Key FindingsLog and Cat alone or in combination mitigated diabetic symptoms, decreased the level of fasting blood glucose, and increased that of serum insulin. The two drugs alone or in combination protected renal function from damage, prevented extracellular matrix hyperplasia and glycogen deposition, as well as alleviated the loss of podocytes detected by histological assay and immunohistochemistry. Flow cytometry revealed that Log and Cat alone or in combination relieved the apoptosis of AGEs-induced podocytes in vitro. Silencing RAGE by RNA interference played a protective role in podocyte apoptosis, whereas overexpression of it worked oppositely. Western blot exhibited that Log and Cat alone or in combination inhibited the activation of RAGE/p38 MAPK/p65 NF-κB and RAGE/Nox4/p65 NF-κB pathways in podocytes. The inhibitory effects of drug combination were more evident than those of individual treatments.SignificanceLog and Cat cooperatively resisted the apoptosis of podocytes upon DN by targeting AGEs-RAGE and its downstream pathways p38 MAPK and Nox4.Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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