Lavender oil suppresses indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase activity in human PBMC

BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Research Article

Harald Schennach¹  Sebastian Schroecksnadel²  Dietmar Fuchs²  Kathrin Becker²  Simon Geisler²  Florian Überall³  Johanna M Gostner³  Markus Ganzera⁴ 

[1] Central Institute of Blood Transfusion and Immunology, University Hospital, Innsbruck, Austria;Division of Biological Chemistry, Biocenter, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria;Division of Medical Biochemistry, Biocenter, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria;Institute of Pharmacy, Pharmacognosy, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria;

关键词: Lavender oil;    Tryptophan;    Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase;    Neopterin;    Kynurenine;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6882-14-503

 received in 2014-01-10, accepted in 2014-12-09,  发布年份 2014

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundLavender remedies have been used in traditional medicine because of antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory and mood alleviating effects, but underlying molecular mechanisms are not yet fully elucidated. Recently, studies investigating the effects of lavender oil in the context of psychiatric disorders have indicated potent pharmacological properties. Metabolism of tryptophan by indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) was found to provide a biochemical link between immunology and neuroendocrinology and to be a frequent target of natural products.MethodsIn this in vitro study, interferences of lavender oil and constituents (-)-linalool, (+)-α-pinene and (+)-limonene with tryptophan catabolism by IDO and formation of neopterin via guanosine triphosphate (GTP)-cyclohydrolase-I and of interferon-γ have been investigated using unstimulated and phytohemagglutinin (PHA)-stimulated human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC).ResultsTreatment with lavender oil dose-dependently suppressed PHA-induced tryptophan breakdown and kynurenine formation. Similar effects were observed for the three constituents. In parallel, formation of neopterin and interferon-γ was diminished upon lavender oil treatment. In unstimulated PBMC, effect of lavender oil treatment was similar, but less pronounced.ConclusionData from this in vitro study suggest that lavender oil treatment might contribute to the modulation of the immune and neuroendocrine system by interfering with activation-induced tryptophan breakdown and IDO activity.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Gostner et al.; licensee BioMed Central. 2014. 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://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.