Paris saponin I induce toxicity in zebrafish by up-regulation of p53 pathway and down-regulation of wnt pathway

Paris saponin I, II, and VII are three important components in Paris polyphylla, which have been widely studied as tumor cytotoxic drugs, but their safety in vivo has not been reported. Therefore, this study evaluated the safety of these three drugs based on the zebrafish model. Firstly, the lethality curves and lethal concentration of 50% (LC50) values of the three saponins were determined and the results showed the values of LC50 of Paris saponin I, II, and VII were 122.2, 210.7, 566.2 ng/mL, respectively. And then our data revealed that Paris saponin I, II and VII had definite hepatotoxicity, as shown by their significant reduction in the liver area and fluorescence intensity of zebrafish. Besides, Paris saponin I affected the heart rate of zebrafish obviously, suggesting its cardiovascular toxicity. Afterwards, we found Paris saponin I and VII reduced the area and fluorescence intensity of kidney in zebrafish, and had mild nephrotoxicity. And when treated with Paris saponin I, the pathological section of liver tissue in zebrafish showed vacuoles, severe necrosis of hepatocytes, and then the apoptosis of hepatocytes could be observed by TUNEL staining. Eventually, we found that the genes expression of p53, Bax and beta-catenin changed significantly in the administration group of Paris saponin I. In general, our study proved Paris saponin I was the most toxic of the three saponins, and the most definite toxic target sites were liver and cardiovascular. And it was further inferred that the totoxicity of Paris saponin I may be related to the regulation of p53 pathway and Wnt pathway. These results above showed the toxicity of the three saponins in zebrafish, suggesting their safety should be paid more attention in the future.