Paeoniflorin attenuates depressive behaviors in systemic lupus erythematosus mice

The present study was to evaluate the effects of paeoniflorin (PA) on systemic lupus erythematosus induced depressive behaviors. 10 wild type mice and 20 MRL/lpr mice were applied for the research. The animals were randomly assigned to wild type, MRL/lpr group and MRL/lpr + PA group. PA restored depressive-like behaviors, such as sucrose consumption, immobile time in the tail suspension tests (TST) and forced swimming tests (FST). PA significantly decreased the levels of interleukin-6 (IL-6), IL-1β, tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) in serum and hippocampus of MRL/lpr mice. Western blot results demonstrated PA inhibited the levels of HMGB1/TLR4/NF-κB pathway. The findings showed that PA was beneficial for the prevention of systemic lupus erythematosus induced depressive behaviors, which possibly by suppressing HMGB1/TLR4/NF-κB pathway.