A Novel Polysaccharide from the Flowers of Lilium lancifolium Alleviates Pulmonary Fibrosis In Vivo and In Vitro

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Lily flowers are widely used in China for lung nourishment; however, their active ingredients remain unknown. To address this question, we isolated a novel polysaccharide (L005-B) from the flowers of Lilium lancifolium . Its backbone is comprised of Glc p, Gal p, and 1,2-linked α-Rha p . The branch is composed of Xyl and T-α-Glc p residues substituted at the C-4 position of Rha p, along with portions of Glc p, Gal p, Ara f, and Glc p A residues substituted at the C-4 position of glucose or the C-3 position of galactose. Bioactivity study showed that L005-B alleviated fibrosis-associated protein (fibronectin, collagen, α-SMA) expression in TGF-β1-induced human fibroblast cells (MRC-5). Moreover, L005-B significantly inhibited the epithelial–mesenchymal transition of the human alveolar type II epithelial cell. More importantly, L005-B dramatically improved bleomycin-induced histopathological changes and attenuated the pulmonary index and hydroxyproline contents. Taken together, our findings revealed that L005-B may serve as a promising leading compound for the development of novel antipulmonary fibrosis therapeutics.