Effects of Corni fructus on ovalbumin-induced airway inflammation and airway hyper-responsiveness in a mouse model of allergic asthma

Journal of Inflammation

Research

Young-Cheol Lee¹  Seung-Hyung Kim²  Bok-Kyu Kim² 

[1] Department of Herbology, College of Oriental Medicine, Sangji University, 220-702, Wonju, Republic of Korea;Institute of Traditional Medicine & Bioscience, Daejeon University, 300-716, Daejeon, Republic of Korea;

关键词: Corni fructus;    Asthma;    Eosinophil;    IL-5;    CCR3;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1476-9255-9-9

 received in 2011-11-18, accepted in 2012-03-23,  发布年份 2012

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundAllergic asthma is a chronic inflammatory lung disease that is characterized by airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) to allergens, airway oedema, increased mucus secretion, excess production of T helper-2 (Th2) cytokines, and eosinophil accumulation in the lungs. Corni fructus (CF) is a fruit of Cornus officinalis Sieb. Et. Zucc. (Cornaceae) and has been used in traditional Korean medicine as an anti-inflammatory, analgesic, and diuretic agent. To investigate the anti-asthmatic effects of CF and their underlying mechanism, we examined the influence of CF on the development of pulmonary eosinophilic inflammation and airway hyperresponsiveness in a mouse model of allergic asthma.MethodsIn this study, BALB/c mice were systemically sensitized to ovalbumin (OVA) by intraperitoneal (i.p.), intratracheal (i.t.) injections and intranasal (i.n.) inhalation of OVA. We investigated the effect of CF on airway hyperresponsiveness, pulmonary eosinophilic infiltration, various immune cell phenotypes, Th2 cytokine production, and OVA-specific immunoglobulin E (IgE) production.ResultsThe CF-treated groups showed suppressed eosinophil infiltration, allergic airway inflammation, and AHR via reduced production of interleuin (IL) -5, IL-13, and OVA-specific IgE.ConclusionsOur data suggest that the therapeutic effects of CF in asthma are mediated by reduced production of Th2 cytokines (IL-5), eotaxin, and OVA-specific IgE and reduced eosinophil infiltration.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Kim 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://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.