Mechanistic insights into the amelioration effects of lipopolysaccharide-induced acute lung injury by baicalein: An integrated systems pharmacology study and experimental validation.

Background: Acute lung injury is an acute progressive respiratory failure caused by several of non-cardiogenic factors which involves in excessive amplification or uncontrolled inflammatory response.

Objectives: In this study, we investigated the protective effect of baicalein against acute lung injury induced by LPS and explored the underlying mechanisms.

Methods: Forty-eight SPF male C57BL/6 mice were randomly divided into normal group, model group, dexamethasone group and baicalein low-dose, medium-dose and high-dose groups. After 5 days of adaptive feeding, the mice were intraperitoneally injected with LPS and dissected after 12 h. Hematoxylin-eosin staining, ELISA assay, immunofluorescence assay and Western-Blot were applied to appraise microstructural changes and protein expressions of lung tissues. Systems pharmacology study was used to evaluate the protection of baicalein on acute lung injury.

Findings: The results showed that baicalein administration could significantly inhibit LPS-induced lung morphological changes, inhibit inflammatory response and pyroptosis. A total of forty-three potential targets of baicalein and acute lung injury were obtained. And PI3K-Akt, TNF and NF-κB were mainly signaling pathways. It is worth mentioning that this experiment also confirmed that NLRP3, caspase-1 and other inflammasome are involved in pyroptosis.

Conclusion: Baicalein has protected against LPS-induced lung tissues injury via inhibiting inflammatory response and pyroptosis.