Fig. 1

Characterisrics of hepatic histopathology or liver function in mice. A Representative histopathological images (HE, × 200) in liver. (I) Control: Liver histology was normal, as shown by the arrow, liver cell nucleus uniform, the nuclear membrane smooth, the chromatin stained lightly, the cytoplasm uniformly pink, hepatocyte cord visible, and hepatic sinus no dilation and arrangement regular; (II) SA treatment group: Mice were administrated orally by SA at 10.0 mg/kg.bw once every other day for 14 days, as shown by the arrow, hepatocyte degeneration or even disappear, hepatocyte edema and vacuolar degeneration, accompanied by the disconnected hepatocyte cord and the unclear boundaries of hepatocytes; also, some places showd the different sizes of nucleus and the nucleus shrinkage or even disappear; (III) LNT + SA treatment: Mice were injected intramuscular with LNT at 1.0 mg/kg.bw and subsequent oral administration of SA at 10.0 mg/kg.bw once every other day for 14 days, as shown by the arrow, hepatocyte cord was visible, hepatic sinusoids expansion mild, less severe than SA treatment group, hepatocytes shoed mild to moderate edema, the sizes of dense staining nuclear varied, and nuclear membrane mild thicken; (IV) LNT control: The normal histology of liver tissues were similar to control group, as shown by the arrow, hepatocyte showed normal without edema and the normal ratio of nuclear to plasma, the uniform nucleus size, the smooth nuclear membrane, the lightly stained chromatin, hepatic sinusoids showed normal shape and no dilatation. B Histogram of ALT or AST content in serum after SA treatment or Lentinan intervention. SA treatment showed the increased levels of serum ALT or AST, which was downregulated significantly after the intervention with Lentinan; Data were expressed as mean ± SD; n = 5. Levels of ALT, AST in serum were quantified by the the convertion from OD values to ng values of per milliliter according to the standard curve; Independent sample’s t-test followed ANOVA was performed for analyzing the difference between groups. *P < 0.05 compared with control group; ^#P < 0.05 compared with SA treatment group. Abbreviations: SA, sodium arsenite; HE, hematoxylin-eosin; LNT, Lentinan; ALT, alanine aminotransferase; AST, aspartate aminotransferase