In vivo effect of triptolide combined with glycyrrhetinic acid on rat cytochrome P450 enzymes

Triptolide (TP) is a major active component in Tripterygium root, but its therapeutic window was very narrow due to its severe multi-organ toxicity.  In this work, the effect of TP combined with glycyrrhetic acid (GA) on mRNA expression and activity of four cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes in rat liver was studied after intragastric administration of TP (0.05, 0.3 and 0.6 mg·kg⁻¹·day⁻¹) and TP (0.6 mg·kg⁻¹·day⁻¹) combined with GA (30 mg·kg⁻¹·day⁻¹) for 7 consecutive days.  Compared with the control, the high dose of TP significantly up-regulated the mRNA expression levels of CYP2E1, 1A2, 3A1 and 2C11, the co-administration of TP and GA further up-regulated the mRNA expression levels of CYP3A1, 2C11 and 2E1 as compared with the high dose of TP.  Meanwhile, TP at high dose and combined with GA significantly increased CYP3A-associated testosterone 6β-hydroxylation activity (2.2-fold and 4.1-fold, respectively) as compared with the control.  Because TP is mainly metabolized by CYP3A2 in male rats, the present work indicated that TP-induced increase of CYP3A activity might be an important reason for the rapidly metabolic clearance of TP in rat liver, and GA can reduce the hepatotoxicity of TP by promoting its hepatic metabolic clearance.  Furthermore, the results also suggest that the drug interactions might be occurred when TP and GA were co-administered with other CYP3A substrate drugs.