Effects of Weipixiao (胃痞消) on Wnt pathway-associated proteins in gastric mucosal epithelial cells from rats with gastric precancerous lesions

Objective To study the effects of Weipixiao (胃痞消, WPX) on Wnt pathway-associated proteins in gastric mucosal epithelial cells from rats with gastric precancerous lesions (GPL). Methods Sprague Dawley rats were randomly divided into control, model, vitacoenzyme (0.2 g·kg −1 ·day −1 ), WPX high-dose (H-WPX, 15 g·kg −1 ·day −1 ), WPX medium-dose (M-WPX, 7.5 g·kg −1 ·day −1 ) and WPX low-dose (L-WPX, 3.75 g·kg −1 ·day −1 ) groups. After successfully establishing the GPL model, the rats were consecutively administered WPX or vitacoenzyme by gastrogavage for 10 weeks. Differential expression of Leucine-rich repeat-containing G-proteincoupled receptor 5 (Lgr5), matrix metalloproteinase-7 (MMP-7), Wnt1, Wnt3a, and β-catenin in gastric mucosal epithelial cells in all groups were immunohistochemically detected, and the images were taken and analyzed semiquantitatively by image pro plus 6.0 software. Results Gastric epithelium in the model group showed significantly higher expression levels of Lgr5, MMP-7, Wnt1, Wnt3a and β-catenin than those of the control group( P