Coumarin of Angelicae dahuricae attenuates paraquat-induced lung injury in mice.

Purpose: Paraquat is one kind of widely used herbicide with highly toxic compound, which is severely harmful for human and animals. Acute poisoning cases occurred frequently, and the fatality rate increases year by year because there is no effective antidote. This study investigated whether coumarin of Angelicae dahuricae can reduce paraquat induced lung damage in mice. Material and methods: We hypothesize that Coumarin of Angelicae dahuricae (CAD) may have a protective effect of Acute Lung Injury (ALI) in mice, so we adopt ALI-caused by paraquat injection infected mice models, observed the mice after PQ infected with CAD protection affects animal mortality rates and the pathological changes of lung tissue, as well as for various oxidase in lung tissue homogenate and influence of the content of inflammatory cytokines in the CAD on the ALI-induced by paraquat protection research. Adult male mice were chosen and divided into 3 groups-control, paraquat and paraquat+coumarin of Angelicae dahuricae, mice in paraquat and paraquat+coumarin of Angelicae dahuricae (120 mg/kg) group received paraquat (50 mg/kg) daily for three weeks. Results: As expected, paraquat could lead to significant changes of shape and structure of the lung. Coumarin of Angelicae dahuricae attenuated paraquat induced morphological damage of lung of experimental animals. Conclusion: Our results showed that coumarin of Angelicae dahuricae could decrease the toxic effect of paraquat in lung.