Beneficial effects of Houttuynia cordata polysaccharides on “two-hit” acute lung injury and endotoxic fever in rats associated with anti-complementary activities

Lu, Yan; Jiang, Yun; Ling, Lijun; Zhang, Yunyi; Li, Hong; Chen, Daofeng

The in vitro experiments clearly revealed that CHCP is a potent anti-complementary agent affecting both classical pathway and the alternative pathway by selectively blocking the key components C3 and C4 in the complement activation cascade. As demonstrated in the literature, C3 functions to activate both the classical and alternative pathways and makes up 70% of the total protein in the complement system 30 . C4, the second most abundant complement protein in serum, is a glycoprotein which functions as the limited activation step in the activation of the classical pathway 2 . It suggested that CHCP could be effective in treating the complement-associated diseases. ALI is a life-threatening complication of various systemic inflammations and of pulmonary disorders that can cause a mortality rate of 30-40% 9 . The current main treatment against ALI has been the application of glucocorticoids, which often lead to severe adverse reactions during the long treatment.