FIGURE 5.

PPARα is a potential target involved in the DCHT treatment for intrahepatic cholestasis. (A) Venn diagram of 22 putative targets of DCHT acting on intrahepatic cholestasis not extrahepatic cholestasis from Figure 5A. Putative targets in the blue and green circles are from GeneCards database and DisGeNET database, respectively. (B-F) Hepatic mRNA expression of Cxcl2 (B), Pxr (C), Ahr (D), Car (E) and PPARa (F) was measured by RT-qPCR after treatment of mice with ANIT (2 days) and/or DCHT (5 days, 1.875 g/kg), as indicated. Data are shown as means ± SEM.; ^* p < 0.05, ^** p < 0.01, ^*** p < 0.001 compared with the vehicle group; ^### p < 0.001 compared with the ANIT treatment group, n = 8. (G,H) luciferase activity from a PPARα-driven luciferase reporter was determined after treatment of HEK293T cells with DCHT (0–2 mg/ml) (G) or indicated compounds (2–50 μM) (H) for 24 h using dual-luciferase reporter approach. Data are shown as means ± SEM; ^* p < 0.05, ^** p < 0.01, ^*** p < 0.001 compared with control, n = 3.