Baicalin, a natural compound, promotes regulatory T cell differentiation

BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Research Article

Ji Yang¹  Ming Li¹  Xue Yang² 

[1] Department of Dermatology, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, 200032, Shanghai, China;Division of Rheumatology, Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China;

关键词: Baicalin;    Foxp3;    Treg cells;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6882-12-64

 received in 2011-07-31, accepted in 2012-03-05,  发布年份 2012

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundCD4+CD25+Foxp3+ regulatory T (Treg) cells inhibit autoimmunity and protect against tissue injury. The development of these Treg cells is controlled by the regulator protein Foxp3, which can be enhanced by the in vitro activation of Foxp3 in the presence of transforming growth factor-beta. However, little is known about alternative methods, such as the use of natural products, for controlling Foxp3-mediated Treg cell differentiation.MethodHEK 293 T cells were transfected with Foxp3 expression plasmid, and then treated with different compounds, Foxp3 mRNA expression was determined by real-time RT-PCR. CD4+CD25-T cells were stimulated with Baicalin, Foxp3 protein expression were analyzed by flow cytometry and confocal microscopy, the regulatory function of T cells stimulated with Baicalin was detected by the carboxyfluorescien succinimidyl ester.ResultsWe demonstrated that Baicalin, a compound isolated from the Chinese herb Huangqin, induced Foxp3 protein expression in cultured T cells, promoted Treg cell differentiation and regulatory activity. Our data also indicated that Baicalin restored Foxp3 expression following its initial interleukin-6-mediated inhibition and induced Foxp3 expression in vitro.ConclusionsThese data suggest that Baicalin may promote Treg cell differentiation and regulatory activity and may serve as a promising natural immunosuppressive compound for treating autoimmune inflammatory diseases.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Yang et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2012. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.