Fig. 5.

Intraperitoneal injection of Alb attenuates the disease activity of DSS colitis. (A) Effect of Alb treatment on BW. Mice were allowed to access 3% DSS with drinking water freely for 7 days. Alb-treated mice received 1 g Alb per kilogram BW via intraperitoneal injection once daily. Control mice received the same volume of saline. The BW was daily recorded and expressed as the percentage of weight loss against the BW on day zero. Data shown are mean ± SD (n = 5; ^##P < 0.01 vs. NC; **P < 0.01 vs. DSS). (B) Effect of Alb treatment on colon length. The colon on day 7 was photographed. The colon length was measured and expressed as centimeter in bar graph (mean ± SD; n = 3; ^##P < 0.01 vs. NC; *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01). (C–E) Effect of Alb treatment on colon sulfenic acid formation and adherens junction protein. Protein extracted from colon tissues of differently treated mice was subjected to Western blot analysis for sulfenic acid and E-Cadherin. The densitometric quantitation of the bands in (C) is shown in D and E. Data are expressed as fold of NC (mean ± SD; n = 3; ^##P < 0.01 vs. NC; *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01). (F) Effect of Alb treatment on histopathological changes. Representative images of HE staining of the colon are shown. Note that DSS-induced colon tissue had partial destruction of the epithelial architecture, including the loss of crypts and epithelial integrity, submucosal edema, and inflammatory cell infiltration. These changes were markedly inhibited in the mice treated with r-Alb.