Abstract
BackgroundPlantago asiatica has been traditionally used for traditional medicine around East Asia. Plantamajoside (PM), which is isolated from this plant, is known for biological properties including anti-inflammation and antioxidant activity. To demonstrate the biological activity of PM against endothelial dysfunction induced by advanced glycation end-products (AGEs), a cellular inflammatory mechanism system was evaluated in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs).MethodsWe obtained PM through previous research in our laboratory. We formed the AGEs from bovine serum albumin with glyceraldehyde in the dark for seven days. To confirm the modulation of the inflammatory mechanism in endothelial dysfunction, we quantified the various pro-inflammatory cytokines and endothelial dysfunction-related proteins in the HUVECs with Western blotting and with real-time and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reactions.ResultsCo-treatment with PM and AGEs significantly suppressed inflammatory cytokines and adhesion molecule expression. Moreover, the PM treatment for down-regulated inflammatory signals and blocked monocyte adhesion on the HUVECs.ConclusionsTheses results demonstrated that PM, as a potential natural compound, protects AGE-induced endothelial cells against inflammatory cellular dysfunction.
Highlights
Plantago asiatica has been traditionally used for traditional medicine around East Asia
After all of the experiments, we focused on the glycer-advanced glycation end-products (AGEs)-induced reactive oxygen species (ROS)-mediated signals against the control (CON), treated with free media, without the reduced BSA (rBSA) groups
Effect of PM in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) treated with glycer-AGEs We examined the effects of PM on the Receptor for advanced glycation end-products (RAGE) protein and mRNA expression levels and the adhesion molecules in the HUVECs treated with glycer-AGEs (Fig. 2); after 24 h treatments with the glycer-AGEs in the absence of PM, the RAGE protein and mRNA levels increased notably, 1.5 and 5.5 times, respectively
Summary
Plantago asiatica has been traditionally used for traditional medicine around East Asia. To demonstrate the biological activity of PM against endothelial dysfunction induced by advanced glycation end-products (AGEs), a cellular inflammatory mechanism system was evaluated in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs). As a pre-dispositional factor in atherosclerosis, leukocyte-endothelial adhesion is known to initiate endothelial dysfunction, followed by increased expressions of pro-inflammatory cytokines including tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), interleukin-6 (IL-6) and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) [18,19,20]. In various inflammation-related diseases, nuclear factor-kappaB (NF-κB) transcription factor is highly activated, and it is known as a pivotal inducer of proinflammatory cytokines, chemokines and adhesion molecules [22,23,24,25]. P50 and p65 subunits are translocated to nuclei and bind to transcription sites [26, 27]
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