The anti-inflammatory effects of curcumin on renal ischemia-reperfusion injury in rats

The present study aimed to explore the protective mechanism of curcumin-precondition in renal ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury. Thirty male SD rats were randomly equally divided into Sham, IRI, and Curcumin groups (n = 10). The model of IRI was induced by clamping the left renal artery for 45 min followed by 24 h reperfusion with the contralateral nephrectomy. ELISA was used to examine the expression of Cr, BUN, IL-8, TNF-α, and IL-6 in the serum; RT-PCR was used to detect the mRNA level of IL-8,TNF-α, and IL-6 in the kidney; The morphology of kidney was examined by Periodic Acid-Schiff stain (PAS). The expression of JAK2, p-JAK2, STAT3, p-STAT3, p65, and p-p65 in kidney were detected by Western blotting. The result displayed that Curcumin pretreatment can significantly increase the expression of p-JAK2 and p-STAT3 and reduce the expression of Cr, BUN, IL-8, TNF-α, IL-6, and p-p65. In addition, Curcumin can attenuate the kidney pathological injury and have no effect on the expression of JAK2, STAT3, and p65. Our findings showed the protective effect of Curcumin in I/R injury is associated with suppressing NF-κB mediating inflammation by activating JAK2/STAT3 signal pathway.