Licochalcone A affects experimental acute pancreatitis

Severe acute pancreatitis (SAP) is a common serious abdominal disease, and intestine injury occurs frequently in SAP. Licochalcone A (LicA) is effective in treating various inflammatory diseases. In this study, we treated mice orally with two doses of LicA every other day for one week, then induced these mice to be experimental SAP models by intraperitoneal injection of caerulein and lipopolysaccharide. We detected gut microbiome by 16s sequencing. The microbiome analyses indicated the beneficial effect of LicA on the maintenance of microbial homeostasis. We found that the anti-inflammatory effect of LicA was more pronounced at low dose, while the regulatory effect on microbiota was more prominent at high dose. We postulated that gut microbiota might be one of the therapeutic targets of LicA to attenuate SAP and SAP-associated ileum injury.