ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Med.
Sec. Pulmonary Medicine
This article is part of the Research TopicTranslational Strategies for Chronic Lung Diseases: Emerging Therapies and Precision MedicineView all 10 articles
Anti-inflammatory and Antioxidant Effects of Dipotassium Glycyrrhizinate in Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome
Provisionally accepted
- Department of Emergency Surgery, First Hospital of Jiaxing, Jiaxing, China
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Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a severe clinical syndrome driven by inflammation, oxidative stress, and pulmonary tissue injury, for which effective therapy drugs remain lacking. In this study, the therapeutic potential and underlying mechanisms of dipotassium glycyrrhizinate (DG) in ARDS were systematically evaluated through both in vitro and in vivo experiments. In an A549 cell model, DG exhibited no cytotoxicity within the tested concentration range and significantly suppressed LPS-induced excessive reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation and pro-inflammatory cytokine expression, including Tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α,and Interleukin (IL)-6, while upregulating the anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10, indicating its potent anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. In an LPS-induced ARDS mouse model, DG treatment not only significantly reduced serum levels of inflammatory cytokines but also increased the activity of the antioxidant enzyme superoxide dismutase (SOD), decreased the levels of myeloperoxidase (MPO) and malondialdehyde (MDA), and markedly alleviated pulmonary histopathological damage, demonstrating notable tissue-protective effects. Based on these findings, network pharmacology analysis revealed that DG targeted multiple ARDS-related core proteins (EGFR, MAPK1, FGFR1) enriched in key signaling pathways such as PI3K-AKT, EGFR, and HIF-1. Molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulations further confirmed the stable binding and strong affinity between DG and EGFR, supporting a regulatory mechanism in the context of ARDS pathogenesis. In conclusion, DG alleviates ARDS-associated inflammation and oxidative stress through coordinated modulation of multiple signaling pathways, providing a theoretical and experimental foundation for its potential development as a natural therapeutic agent against ARDS.
Keywords: animal experiment, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, ARDS, dipotassium glycyrrhizinate
Received: 21 Aug 2025; Accepted: 19 Jan 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Cao, Xu, Yu and Shen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Xuning Shen
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