LACCA SINICA EXSICCATA contributes to the chemotaxis of eosinophils in cytokine‐induced A549 human epithelial cells

Abstract

In this study, we demonstrated whether LACCA SINICA EXSICCATA (LSE) affects the eosinophil chemotaxis and changes adhesion molecules in cytokine-induced A549 epithelial cells. LSE has been used in promoting blood flow to remove blood stasis and also to reduce the risk of asthma. After the A549 cells has been stimulated with TNF- α (50 ng/ml), IL-4 (50 ng/ml) and IL-1 (10 ng/ml), expression and secretion of cytokines including eotaxin, IL-8, IL-16, GAPDH, ICAM-1, VCAM-1 and RANTES were determined by realtime PCR and ELISA. As a result, LSE reduced eotaxin expression and secretion upon stimulation with TNF-α and IL-4 on A549 cells in a concentration-dependent manner. In addition, eosinophil migration caused 26%, 56%, 69% inhibition at the concentration of 1, 10, 100 ug/ml LSE respectively. These results imply that suppression of eotaxin expression by LSE may contribute to their anti-inflammatory reactions. This work was supported by a grant of the Oriental Medicine R&D Project, Ministry of Health & Welfare, Republic of Korea (HMP-00-CO-02-0002).