Sargassum horneri mitigates particulate matter induced inflammatory response in MLE-12 cells via MAPK pathways

Abstract

Abstract Rise of ambient particulate matter (PM) exhibits positive correlation with increased respiratory diseases since PM triggers an inflammatory response in lung. As approaches aiming at limiting PM exposure provide only partial solutions, we investigated a therapeutic approach to mitigate harmful effects of PM in this study. Specifically, we examined the anti-inflammatory potential of the 80% ethanol extract of Sargassum honeri (SHE) against PM exposed murine lung epithelial cells (MLE-12). PM exhibited a cytotoxic effect on MLE-12 from rather low concentrations (concentrations > 15.6 μg/mL; IC50 44.1 μg/mL), and the cytotoxic concentration of PM utilized in this study was 125 μg/mL. But, SHE (0–125 μg/mL) was not cytotoxic on MLE-12 cells, and concentrations 62.5 and 125 μg/mL were tested in this study. SHE reversed the PM induced lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) release and cell proliferation loss of MLE-12 cells. SHE also decreased the PM induced secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-1β, TNF-α), pro-inflammatory mediator COX-2, anti-inflammatory cytokines (IL-6, IL-8) and inflammatory chemokines (MCP-1, CCL5). Furthermore, SHE decreased PM induced phosphorylation of p38 mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase, extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 (Erk1/2) and c-Jun NH (2)-terminal kinase (JNK). Taken together, we conclude that SHE’s anti-inflammatory effect was regulated probably via the inhibition of p38, ERK and JNK MAP kinase signaling pathway in MLE-12 cells. This research is a part of the project, “Development of functional food products with natural materials derived from marine resources”, funded by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, Korea in 2017 (Project NO. 20172085).