Advance in study on hepatoprotective effects and its mechanism of polysaccharides

Liver damage is the pathologic status in the liver system, which can lead to cirrhosis, fibrosis and cancer of the liver. So to search for effective drugs on prevention and treatment of anti-hepatic lesion have already attracted broad concern in the world. Polysaccharides widely exist in plants, microorganisms and animals, and have high efficiency but low toxicity properties. Therefore, polysaccharides had been the hotspot in the research field of liver-protecting medicines, and had undergone great progresses. In this study, the hepatoprotective effects and its mechanism of polysaccharides were summarized and reviewed, and the market prospects of development and application were prospected. The research result indicated that polysaccharides derived from plants, microorganisms, animals which had significant effects on liver protection. Results also showed that polysaccharides showed the protective effect on chemical liver injury by anti-oxidation, alleviating calcium overload, adjusting the function of mitochondria, and the protective effect on immune liver injury by regulating cytokine secretion, blocking the complement system activity, inhibiting inflammatory mediator expression, suppressing hepatocyte apoptosis. Polysaccharides had rich resource, diverse bio-effects, abundance approaches and multitarget. Therefore, there is huge potential for developing polysaccharides as novel hepatoprotective medicine candidates.