Anti‐Inflammatory Action of Black Garlic through downregulation of NF‐κB activation and MAP kinase phosphorylation

Abstract

In this study we demonstrated that garlic inhibits the inflammatory mediators and the active compounds are different from those isolated from garlic or aged garlic. Lipopolysaccharide‐induced nitric oxide (NO) production was determined by Griess method. The DNA binding activity of NF‐κB was investigated by electrophoretic mobility shift assay. NF‐κB and inducible nitric oxide synthetase (iNOS) transcriptional activity was determined by luciferase assay. Expression of iNOS and cyclooxygenase‐2(COX‐ 2) was determined by western blot. The anti‐inflammatory effects of garlic or aged garlic in in vivo were investigated in Lethality studies inflammatory models. These previous observations, the LPS‐stimulated RAW cells caused phosphorylation of the ERK, JNK and p38 phosphorylation in LPS‐stimulated RAW 264.7 cells, suggesting that MAP kinases are involved in the inhibition of LPS‐stimulated NF‐κB binding by garlic in RAW 264.7 cells. The results discussed above demonstrated that garlic and aged garlic exhibited antagonistic activity in a cellular system. We examined the effects of garlic and aged garlic LPS‐induced serum IL‐1β, IL‐ 6 and TNF‐α production. In conclusion, the results of the present study provide the first evidence that garlic inhibits LPS‐induced NO, PGE2 and cytokine (TNF‐α) production. These inhibitory effects of garlic and aged garlic were found to be associated with NF‐κB and MAP kinase signaling, suggesting a possible approach to the treatment of inflammatory diseases.