N-acetylglucosamine increases the efficacy of quercetin in the treatment of experimental acute kidney injury

Context: Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a common complication of renal pathology and an adverse drug effect. Mortality caused by AKI reaches 80% in some groups of patients. Therefore, the search of the effective agents for AKI treatment is an important task of the pharmaceutical science. Aims: To evaluate the efficacy of various combinations of N-acetylglucosamine (NAG) and quercetin in rats with AKI. Methods: The study was conducted on the model of acute glycerol nephrosis in rats. Combinations of NAG and quercetin in ratios of 1:2, 1:1, 2:1 and 3:1 were studied at a dose of 50 mg/kg with daily intramuscular injection for a week. The efficacy of the combinations was assessed by the indicators of animal survival, excretory renal function, nitrogen metabolism and nephroprotective activity (NA). Results: The combination of NAG and quercetin in the 1:1 ratio was the most effective. There was a significant increase of excretory renal function and normalization of nitrogen metabolism under the influence of this combination. This determined the NA level up to 69.7%, which was the highest value in the presented study. This combination was statistically superior to all others, as well as to quercetin, by the efficacy level. In addition, the combination exceeded the quercetin in NA index by 2.7 times. Conclusions: Thus, the NAG/quercetin combination in 1:1 ratio in injectable dosage form is the most promising for kidney diseases treatment.