Abstract
BackgroundMany natural products used in preventive medicine have also been developed as cosmeceutical ingredients in skin care products, such as Scutellaria baicalensis and Gardenia jasminoides. Norartocarpetin is one of the antioxidant and antityrosinase activity compound in Artocarpus communis; however, the cytotoxicity, skin irritation and antimelanogenesis mechanisms of norartocarpetin have not been investigated yet.MethodsIn the present study, cell viability in vitro and skin irritation in vivo are used to determine the safety of norartocarpetin. The melanogenesis inhibition of norartocarpetin was determined by cellular melanin content and tyrosinase in B16F10 melanoma cell. Moreover, we examined the related-melanogenesis protein by western blot analysis for elucidating the antimelanogenesis mechanism of norartocarpin.ResultsThe result of the present study demonstrated that norartocarpetin not only present non-cytotoxic in B16F10 and human fibroblast cells but also non-skin irritation in mice. Moreover, our result also first found that norartocarpetin downregulated phospho-cAMP response element-binding (phospho-CREB) and microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (MITF) expression, which in turn decreased both synthesis of tyrosinases (TRP-1 and TRP-2) and cellular melanin content. This process is dependent on norartocarpetin phosphorylation by mitogen-activated protein kinases such as phospho-JNK and phospho-p38, and it results in decreased melanogenesis.ConclusionThe present study suggests that norartocarpetin could be used as a whitening agent in medicine and/or cosmetic industry and need further clinical study.
Highlights
Many natural products used in preventive medicine have been developed as cosmeceutical ingredients in skin care products, such as Scutellaria baicalensis and Gardenia jasminoides
Skin color darkens as a result of excessive exposure to UV radiation due to activation of the alphamelanocyte stimulating hormone (α-MSH) pathway, which results in melanogenesis [18]. α-MSH, a cyclic adenine monophosphate elevating agent, is usually used to induce the phosphorylation of cAMP response elementbinding protein (CREB) and enhance microphthalmiaassociated transcription factor (MITF) protein levels [19]
The results indicated that norartocarpetin was found to have no skin irritation effect
Summary
Many natural products used in preventive medicine have been developed as cosmeceutical ingredients in skin care products, such as Scutellaria baicalensis and Gardenia jasminoides. Skin color darkens as a result of excessive exposure to UV radiation due to activation of the alphamelanocyte stimulating hormone (α-MSH) pathway, which results in melanogenesis [18]. Previous studies have demonstrated that MITF is the major regulator for synthesized tyrosinase (TYR) and its related proteins (TRP-1 and TRP-2) [20,21]. These tyrosinaserelated proteins are the rate-limiting enzyme of melanogenesis since they regulate conversion of tyrosine to dopaquinone, rearrangement of DOPAchrome to 5,6-dihydroxy-indole-2-carboxylic acid, and abnormal accumulation of melanin pigments. Phosphorylation of mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPK) and signaling cascades of extracellular responsive kinase (ERK), cJun N-terminal kinase (JNK), and p38 modulate melanogenesis [22,23]
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