Protective Effects of the Polyphenol Sesamin on Allergen-Induced TH2 Responses and Airway Inflammation in Mice

Abstract

Allergic asthma is a lifelong airway condition that affects people of all ages. In recent decades, asthma prevalence continues to increase globally, with an estimated number of 250,000 annual deaths attributed to the disease. Although inhaled corticosteroids and b-adrenergic receptor agonists are the primary therapeutic avenues that effectively reduce asthma symptoms, profound side effects may occur in patients with long-term treatments. Therefore, development of new therapeutic strategies is needed as alternative or supplement to current asthma treatments. Sesamin is a natural polyphenolic compound with strong anti-oxidative effects. Several studies have reported that sesamin is effective in preventing hypertension, thrombotic tendency, and neuroinflammation. However, it is still unknown whether sesamin can reduce asthma-induced allergic inflammation and airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR). Our study has revealed that sesamin exhibited significant anti-inflammatory effects in ovalbumin (OVA)-induced murine asthma model. We found that treatments with sesamin after OVA sensitization and challenge significantly decreased expression levels of interleukin-4 (IL-4), IL-5, IL-13, and serum IgE. The numbers of total inflammatory cells and eosinophils in BALF were also reduced in the sesamin-treated animals. Histological results demonstrated that sesamin attenuated OVA-induced eosinophil infiltration, airway goblet cell hyperplasia, mucus occlusion, and MUC5AC expression in the lung tissue. Mice administered with sesamin showed limited increases in AHR compared with mice receiving vehicle after OVA challenge. OVA increased phosphorylation levels of IkB-a and nuclear expression levels of NF-kB, both of which were reversed by sesamin treatments. These data indicate that sesamin is effective in treating allergic asthma responses induced by OVA in mice.

Sesamin attenuates neurotoxicity in mouse model of ischemic brain stroke

“…Therefore, targeting inflammatory pathways may provide effective therapeutic intervention for treatment of acute ischemic stroke. Recent studies have shown the potential anti-inflammatory properties of SES against neuroinflammation and inflammatory mediators (Bournival et al, 2012b;Lin et al, 2014). In agreement with these investigations, our results indicated that SES treatment suppressed TNF-a and IL-6 mRNA levels in ischemic brain and therefore may act as anti-inflammatory agent.…”

“…Sesamin (SES) is one of the most abundant ligand in sesame seeds (Phitak et al, 2012). It has been shown to exhibit multiple biological functions, such as inhibition of inflammation (Lin et al, 2014), carcinogenesis (Deng et al, 2013) and oxidative stress (Hsieh et al, 2011). In addition, sesamin has been reported to attenuate hypertension (Matsumura et al, 1995), serum and hepatic cholesterol (Hirata et al, 1996), serum triglycerides (Fukuda et al, 1998), cerebral thrombogenesis (Noguchi et al, 2004), and neuroinflammation (Bournival et al, 2012b).…”

Cereal Lignans, Natural Compounds of Interest for Human Health?

“…A few cereal lignans have also been tested in vitro and found to be effective inhibitors of adipocyte differentiation. Pinoresinol, cycloisolariciresinol, lariciresinol, seicoisolariciresinol in the concentration range of 1-1000 nM, are effective in inhibiting 3T3-L1 cell differentiation [77] and although their fine mechanism of action has still to be clarified, it is likely that it involves the ability to regulate nuclear receptors such as PPARs, ERs and LXRs [65,78,79].…”

Curcumin ameliorates asthmatic airway inflammation by activating nuclear factor‐E2‐related factor 2/haem oxygenase (HO)‐1 signalling pathway

“…The severity of inflammatory cell infiltration was determined by a 5-point system with scoring as follows: 0, none (no inflammation); 1, minimal (occasion ruffing with inflammatory cells); 2, mild (1-3 cells); 3, moderate (4-5 cells); and 4, severe (more than 5 cells). 50 Goblet cell hyperplasia was quantified using 5-point system with scoring as follows: 0, no goblet cells; 1, <25% goblet cells in cell population; 2, 25-50%; 3, 50-75%; and 4, > 75% of goblet cells. 51 Western blot analysis RAW264.7 cells were harvested and inoculated into T25 flasks at a density of 2 9 10 5 cells/flask.…”