Abstract
Xylopic acid (XA) is a kaurene diterpene which naturally exists in African plants such as Xylopia aethiopica. It has been established to exhibit acute and chronic anti-inflammatory activities from our earlier studies. This current work sets out to shed light on the potential molecular target(s) of xylopic acid. Selection of investigated targets (NF-κB, Nrf2 and PTP1B) was based on an unbiased approach, using the SPiDER in silico prediction tool, and a candidate approach, examining well-known anti-inflammatory targets. Reporter gene assays were used to test for altered NF-κB and Nrf2 activities in transfected HEK or CHO cells, respectively, and immunoblot and flow cytometric analyses examined protein expression of the Nrf2/NF-kB target genes HO-1 and VCAM-1 in HUVEC. An effect of XA on PTP1B activity assay was studied using an in vitro enzyme assay with recombinant human enzyme and pNPP as substrate as well as by looking at insulin receptor phosphorylation in HepG2 cells. XA at 30 µM significantly (p < 0.001) inhibited the NF-κB-dependent reporter gene expression and enhanced activation of Nrf2 in a concentration-dependent manner when compared to the control. XA also marginally increased HO-1 protein expression levels while expression of VCAM-1 was reduced to 70% in XA-treated endothelial cells. However, XA did not show any sign of inhibition of PTP1B or a related phosphatase. Our findings suggest that the anti-inflammatory mechanism of XA entails the inhibitory effect on NF-κB and an increased activity of Nrf2, accompanied by increased expression of HO-1 and reduced expression of VCAM-1.
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The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
We wish to express our profound gratitude to the Wilmar Schwabe Research Fellowship from the Society of Medicinal Plants and Natural Products Research (to YDB) for their support to enable this work possible. The authors thank the molecular target research team in the Department of Pharmacognosy, University of Vienna.
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Yaw Duah Boakye has no conflict of interest. Newman Osafo has no conflict of interest. James Oppong-Kyekyeku has no conflict of interest. Wonder Kofi Mensah Abotsi has no conflict of interest. Eric Boakye-Gyasi has no conflict of interest. Elke Heiss has no conflict of interest. Christian Agyare has no conflict of interest.
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Boakye, Y.D., Osafo, N., Oppong-Kyekyeku, J. et al. Regulation of Nrf2 and NF-κB activities may contribute to the anti-inflammatory mechanism of xylopic acid. Inflammopharmacol 30, 1835–1841 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10787-022-00950-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10787-022-00950-y