BPC 157 Counteracts Gastric Lesions after Bilateral Nephrectomy and Attenuates Deleterious Course in Rats

Aim. Stable gastric pentadecapeptide BPC 157 is an antiulcer peptide tested in clinical trials, for inflammatory bowel disease and multiple sclerosis, effective against a variety of different ulcerogens, NSAIDs, absolute alcohol, restraint stress, insulin, alloxan, acute pancreatitis. However, BPC 157 was not tested against gastric lesions that might be induced with bilateral nephrectomy. Of note, chronic renal insuficiency might be associated with increased peptic ulcer presentation. Materials and methods. Rats were subjected to bilateral nephrectomy, sacrificed at 24h and at 48h, BPC 157 was given (10µg/kg, 10ng/kg i.p.) immediately after nephrectomy and 24h after nephrectomy. Assessment included gastric lesions, gross clinical presentation, urea, creatinine, AST, ALT, bilirubin, K, Na, Mg, Ca, inorganic phosphates in serum as described (Sikiric et al, Curr Pharm Des. 2014;20(7):1126‐35). Results. Gastric lesions were consistently attenuated (means±SD, sum of the longest lesions diameters, 1.8±0.5 mm µg (24h), 1.0±0.5 mm µg (48h) vs. 10.5±1.5 mm control (24h), 15.0±3.0 mm control (48h), *P<0.05, at least, the increased values of the urea, creatinine, AST, inorganic phosphates were lessened while K, Na, Mg, Ca, were not affected. All controls rats were edematous (scored 0‐3) (Min/Med/Max, scored 3/3/3) while BPC 157 were markedly less affected (scored 1/1/1 µg, at 24h and 48h; 1/1/1 ng, at 24h and 48h). Conclusions. Applied after nephrectomy, the deleterious course was attenuated after BPC 157 administration, and particularly, gastric lesions markedly attenuated. Supported by Grant 108‐1083570‐3635, Croatia.