Mechanisms of ferroptosis in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and therapeutic effects of traditional Chinese medicine: a review

Nan Wang; Hanyun Que; Qiulin Luo; Wenxin Zheng; Hong Li; Qin Wang; Jian Gu

doi:10.3389/fmed.2024.1356225

Mechanisms of ferroptosis in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and therapeutic effects of traditional Chinese medicine: a review

Front Med (Lausanne). 2024 Mar 25:11:1356225. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2024.1356225. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Nan Wang¹, Hanyun Que¹, Qiulin Luo¹, Wenxin Zheng¹, Hong Li¹, Qin Wang^{1

2}, Jian Gu¹

Affiliations

¹ College of Pharmacy, Southwest Minzu University, Chengdu, China.
² BMI Center for Biomass Materials and Nanointerfaces, College of Biomass Science and Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.

Abstract

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is characterized by excessive accumulation of fat in hepatocytes (nonalcoholic fatty liver (NAFL)), and lobular inflammation and hepatocyte damage (which characterize nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) are found in most patients). A subset of patients will gradually develop liver fibrosis, cirrhosis, and eventually hepatocellular carcinoma, which is a deadly disease that threatens human life worldwide. Ferroptosis, a novel nonapoptotic form of programmed cell death (PCD) characterized by iron-dependent accumulation of reactive oxygen radicals and lipid peroxides, is closely related to NAFLD. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has unique advantages in the prevention and treatment of NAFLD due to its multicomponent, multipathway and multitarget characteristics. In this review, we discuss the effect of TCM on NAFLD by regulating ferroptosis, in order to provide reference for the further development and application of therapeutic drugs to treat NAFLD.

Keywords: ferroptosis; mechanisms; nonalcoholic fatty liver disease; nonalcoholic steatohepatitis; traditional Chinese medicine.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was financially supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (82174083), the Natural Science Foundation of Sichuan Province (2022NSFSC1735), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (ZYN2022094) a special fund project for basic research business expenses of the Central Universities of Southwest Minzu University (2022NYXXS007), Sichuan Provincial Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine Innovation Team Project (2023ZD05).