The protective effect of the earthworm active ingredients on hepatocellular injury induced by endoplasmic reticulum stress.

Abstract The earthworm is a widely used Chinese herbal medicine. There are more than 40 prescriptions including earthworms in the “Compendium of Materia Medica”. TCM theory holds that earthworms exert antispasmodic and antipyretic effects through the liver meridian to calm the liver. However, the clinical effect of earthworms on liver injury has not been clearly demonstrated. We have previously established a method to extract the active ingredients from earthworms (hereinafter referred to as EWAs) [1] . In the present study, we observed protective effect of the EWAs on tunicamycin-induced ERS (endoplasmic reticulum stress) model in human hepatic L02 cells. The results showed that the EWAs promote proliferation and reduced apoptosis of ERS model in L02 cells ( P P