肝纤维化是由多种原因引起的慢性肝损害所导致的病理改变。肝星状细胞(HSC)活化是肝纤维化发生、发展的中心环节。本课题组体内实验证实黄芪汤有良好的抗肝纤维化作用，能抑制TGF-β1表达及SMAD信号通路。体外实验发现，HSC中miR-663a靶向TGF-β/SMAD信号通路，并调控相关LncRNA的表达，推测LncRNA/miR-663a/TGF-β/SMAD信号通路在HSC活化过程中起到重要的作用；黄芪汤中有效组分黄芪总皂苷干预HSC对LncRNA/miR-663a/TGF-β/SMAD通路基因的表达有调控作用。因此，本项目在前期研究基础上，运用分子/细胞生物学及生物信息学等技术手段揭示LncRNA/miR-663a/TGF-β/SMAD信号通路在HSC活化中的分子机制，并以此阐释黄芪汤治疗肝纤维化的作用机理。此研究对于阐释肝纤维化形成机制、揭示中药抗肝纤维化机理研究，具有重要学术意义。

Liver fibrosis is the excessive accumulation of extracellular matrix proteins including collagen that occurs in most types of chronic liver diseases. Hepatic stellate cells (HSC) are the main collagen-producing cells in the liver and their activation promotes liver fibrosis. We found that Huangqi decoction (HQD), a well-known traditional Chinese herbal formulation, alleviates dimethylnitrosamine-induced liver fibrosis and inhibits HSCs proliferation and activation through TGF-β/SMAD signaling pathway in vivo. We found that lncRNA/miR-663a/TGF-β/SMAD Signaling Pathway plays a very important role in HSC. Totala astragalus saponins (AS) is a main component of Radix Astragali. AS has a significant efficacy against liver fibrosis and it can modulate LncRNA/miR-663a/TGF-β/SMAD signaling pathway. Further study will investigate the molecular mechanism of LncRNA/miR-663a/TGF-β/SMAD signaling pathway in HSC activation. It might help to elucidate the biological role in the progression of liver fibrosis and to investigate the action mechanism of HQD on liver fibrosis.