Male Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats (250 g ± 10 g) were purchased from Beijing HFK Biotechnology Co., Ltd (Beijing, China). All rats were kept and maintained in the animal facility of Tianjin Medical University General Hospital under a 12-h light/dark cycle in a temperature-controlled room (25 ± 3 °C) with free access to clean food and water and were adapted to the environment for a week before the experiments.

The study was conducted in accordance with the Basic & Clinical Pharmacology & Toxicology policy for experimental and clinical studies[12]. All experimental procedures involving the animals were reviewed and approved by the Tianjin Medical University Animal Ethics Committee (Tianjin, China).