Gambogic acid attenuates liver fibrosis by inhibiting the PI3K/AKT and MAPK signaling pathways via inhibiting HSP90

Highlights: • Gambogic acid ameliorated liver fibrosis in rats in vivo • Gambogic acid inhibited the proliferation of hepatic stellate cell. • Gambigic acid triggered autophagy, apoptosis and cell cycle arrest. • Gambigic acid inhibited PI3K/AKT and MAPK signaling pathways. • The mechanism was related to inhibit Heat shock protein 90 and its client proteins. -- Abstract: Gambogic acid (GA), a major ingredient of Garcinia hanburryi, is known to have diverse biological effects. The present study was designed to evaluate the anti-fibrotic effects of GA on hepatic fibrosis and reveal its underlying mechanism. We investigated the anti-fibrotic effect of GA on dimethylnitrosamine and bile duct ligation induced liver fibrosis in rats in vivo. The rat and human hepatic stellate cell lines (HSCs) lines were chose to evaluate the effect of GA in vitro. Our results indicated that GA could significantly ameliorate liver fibrosis associated with improving serum markers, decrease in extracellular matrix accumulation and HSCs activation in vivo. GA significantly inhibited the proliferation of HSC cells and induced the cell cycle arrest at the G1 phase. Moreover, GA triggered autophagy at early time point and subsequent initiates mitochondrial mediated apoptotic pathway resulting in HSC cell death. The mechanism of GA was related to inhibit heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) and degradation of the client proteins inducing PI3K/AKT and MAPK signaling pathways inhibition. This study demonstrated that GA effectively ameliorated liver fibrosis in vitro and in vivo, which provided new insights into the application of GA for liver fibrosis.