Abstract: AIM: To investigate the effects of Astragalus on peritoneal fibrosis correlating peritoneal dialysis. METHODS: Human peritoneal mesothelial cells (HPMC) were cultured in vitro. They were divided into five groups: RPMI1640 culture medium as control group, PDS(peritoneal dialysis solution) containing 1.5 % glucose as PDS group, PDS containing 1.5 % glucose and Astragalus 10mg·ml^-1 as Astragalus group 1, PDS containing 1.5 %glucose and Astragalus 20 mg·ml^-1 as Astragalus group 2 and PDS containing 1.5 % glucose and Astragalus 40mg·ml^-1 as Astragalus group 3 for testing. The levels of TGF-β₁ in supernatant of the cell culture was detected by the method of ELISA and the mRNA expression of TGF-β₁ were tested by the method of reverse transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR) at 24 hours. RESULTS: The level of TGF-β₁ was significant lower in control group than that in PDS group (P < 0.05). Marked lower level of TGF-β₁ was found in Astragalus group 1, Astragalus group 2 and Astragalus group 3 compared with the PDS group (P <0.05). The mRNA expression of TGF-β₁ increased significantly to 162.43 % compared with the control group. The mRNA expression of TGF-β₁ increased 23.52 % in Astragalus group 1, 21.36 % in Astragalus group 2 and 18.71 % in Astragalus group 3, respectively, and significant difference were found when compared with those in PDS groups (P <0.01). CONCLUSION: Astragalus inhibits TGF-β₁ protein and mRNA over-expression induced by commercial PDS and plays a beneficial role in peritoneal fibrosis correlating peritoneal dialysis.

Key words: Astragalus, peritoneal dialysis, human peritoneal mesothelial cell, cytokine, peritoneal fibrosis