Quercetin alleviates kidney damage caused by mercury Chloride: The protective effects of quercetin on autophagy and inflammation were studied based on TRIM32/TLR4/LC3 pathway.

Objective: Mercury is one of the heavy metal pollutants causing serious harm to human health. Quercetin was observed to repair kidney damage through the TLR4/TRIM32 pathway, and the detoxification effect of quercetin on heavy metal poisoning was observed.
Methods: For the study, the researchers divided 40 male mice from the KM strain into five groups: control, HgCl ₂ , QU30, HgCl ₂ +QU15, and HgCl ₂ +QU30. The biological effects of those mice in each group were detected by the biochemical experiment, histopathology experiment and protein expression experiment respectively.
Results: HgCl ₂ had effects in increasing the level of malondialdehyde (MDA) and decreasing the activity of antioxidant enzymes (P < 0.05). HgCl ₂ induced inflammation by increasing tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin-6 (IL-6), interleukin-1β (IL-1β) and Toll Like Receptor 4 (TLR-4) (P < 0.05). The expression of creatinine (CRE) and urea nitrogen (BUN) showed that HgCl ₂ promoted kidney injury. HgCl ₂ altered renal tissue integrity and TRIM32 expression which resulted in the increased autophagy associated protein levels of LC3. In contrast, quercetin reduced oxidative stress, autophagy, inflammation and histopathological changes (P < 0.05).
Conclusion: Quercetin has the renal protection effects of anti-inflammation, anti-oxidation and anti-autophagy.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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