Carnosine reduces serum uric acid in hyperuricemia rats via restoring hepatorenal dysfunction and enhancing uric acid excretion by inhibiting inflammation

[Display omitted] •Decreasing effect of carnosine on serum uric acid of hyperuricemia rats was demonstrated.•Carnosine could repair hepatorenal damage in hyperuricemic rats.•The anti-inflammatory of carnosine was realized by NF-κB and JNK/P-JNK signaling pathway.•Carnosine downregulated the expression of URAT1 and GLUT9.•Carnosine enhanced uric acid excretion by inhibiting inflammation. Carnosine is a new type of food supplement with various bioactive functions, which has been widely used in fields such as health products, functional beverages, cosmetology, etc. However, there are few studies and application of carnosine in hyperuricemia. In the present study, the hyperuricemia rat model and the HK-2 cell injury model were used for investigating the anti-hyperuricemia effect and mechanism of carnosine. The results shown that, after carnosine administration, the content of serum uric acid(SUA) was decreased by 40.9%, the hepatic oxidative injury and the renal inflammatory injury were inhibited, the gene expressions of renal urate transporter 1(URAT1) and glucose transporter type 9(GLUT9) were remarkably downregulated. In the HK-2 cell injury model, the protein expressions of p-p65, p-JNK, NLRP3, caspase-1, URAT1 and GLUT9 were inhibited by carnosine. Furthermore, the protein expressions of URAT1 and GLUT9 were significantly decreased after the inhibition of p-p65 and p-JNK by QNZ and SP600125.