Acer tegmeutosum Maxim extract alleviates acute alcohol-induced liver disease and regulates gut microbiota dysbiosis in mice

Acer tegmentosum Maxim (AT) has a variety of pharmacological activities, however, the effects of AT on liver injury and gut microbiota in alcoholic liver disease (ALD) mice is still unclear. This study aimed to evaluate the preventive effect of AT extract on acute alcoholic liver disease. Six-week-old male C57BL/6J mice were randomly divided into 6 groups. Each group was intragastrically treated saline or different concentration of AT extract solution for 5 weeks continuously. After the last gavage, except for the NC group, all the other groups were gavaged twice with 56% alcohol to establish the acute ALD model and biochemical indexes, histopathological, and gut microbiota were analyzed. Established an acute ALD mouse model and detected serum, liver oxidation levels, and alcohol metabolism-related gene expressions. Through 16S rRNA sequencing, analyzed gut microbiota, explored the relationship between gut microbiota and liver indicators. AT extract significantly decreased lipid levels, promoted ADH, ALDH, and increased the antioxidant activities. Meanwhile, AT extract significantly downregulated the expression of lipid oxidation and inflammatory factors, upregulated alcohol metabolism genes. In addition, 16S rRNA sequencing and analysis showed that AT extract effectively regulated the gut microbiota diversity of ALD mice, significantly improved the structural disturbance of intestinal microflora. AT extract regulated gut microbiota and had a strong correlation with serum, liver-related indexes, and gene expression levels. All these results showed that AT can alleviate alcohol induced liver injury by regulating oxidative stress, inflammatory response, alcohol metabolism, and gut microbiota disorder.