{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,1]],"date-time":"2026-10-01T10:58:20Z","timestamp":1790852300083,"version":"4.1.0"},"reference-count":29,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"19","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,1]],"date-time":"2026-10-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1790812800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Research Fund for Academician Lin He New Medicine","award":["JYHL2022MS08"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["JYHL2022MS08"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Int. J. Mol. Sci.","IJMS"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The dried fruits of Ligustrum lucidum Ait. are well-established in East Asian medicine for hepatoprotection. Given this ethnopharmacological precedent and their close taxonomic kinship, we hypothesized that the fruit polysaccharide of its horticultural congener, Ligustrum \u00d7 vicaryi L. (LVFP), may confer analogous hepatic benefits. We assessed LVFP in a murine model of acute liver injury (ALI) induced by lipopolysaccharide and D-galactosamine (LPS\/D-GalN) to test this hypothesis. LVFP pretreatment significantly mitigated hepatic pathological damage, normalized serum aminotransferases (AST, ALT), and reversed lipid peroxidation (reduced MDA, elevated SOD). Simultaneously, LVFP reduced pro-inflammatory cytokines, including interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-\u03b1), and corrected lipid metabolic abnormalities (CHO, TG). To decode these phenotypic rescues, network pharmacology and molecular docking nominated a 10-gene hub signature (featuring KDR (binding energy = \u22128.65 kcal\/mol), AKT1, GSK3B, and IL2). we further found that this signature\u2014particularly KDR and PKM\u2014robustly discriminates ALI from controls (AUC = 1.00; AUPR = 0.848), supporting its disease relevance. Collectively, these findings support our initial hypothesis that LVFP exerts multi-dimensional hepatoprotection.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/ijms27198805","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,1]],"date-time":"2026-10-01T10:25:44Z","timestamp":1790850344000},"page":"8805","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Ligustrum \u00d7 vicaryi Fruit Polysaccharide Attenuates LPS\/D-GalN-Induced Acute Liver Injury in Mice"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"27","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-0807-6993","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Shu-Ling","family":"Liu","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Pharmacy, Jining Medical University, Rizhao 276826, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-4123-3102","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Hui","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute of Immunology and Molecular Medicine, Jining Key Laboratory of Immunology, Jining Medical University, Jining 272067, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"methodology","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"given":"Jian-An","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Pharmacy, Jining Medical University, Rizhao 276826, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Run-Dong","family":"Lv","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Pharmacy, Jining Medical University, Rizhao 276826, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Shao-Jian","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Pharmacy, Jining Medical University, Rizhao 276826, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-3734-6676","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Li-Tao","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Pharmacy, Jining Medical University, Rizhao 276826, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,1]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"5122","DOI":"10.1111\/jcmm.17538","article-title":"Deficiency of Ninjurin1 attenuates LPS\/D-galactosamine-induced acute liver failure by reducing TNF-\u03b1-induced apoptosis in hepatocytes","volume":"26","author":"Kim","year":"2022","journal-title":"J. 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