Review Effects of Chinese Herbal Products on Mammalian Retinal Functions

Abstract

Ocular ischemia and inflammation are two major factors which induce retinal degeneration. Treatment of these diseases has been difficult, though numerous agents have been tried. Natural products could be a good field to venture into because various medicinal plants have been used for centuries to treat circulation stasis, inflammation, visual disturbances, and eyesight failure. Tetramethyl-pyrazine, coumarin, methyl tyramine, rescinnamine, apocynin, and hesperetin are some natural products isolated from Chinese herbs for improving ocular blood flow, particularly in the choroid and retina. For ocular inflammation, at least a dozen natural products are reviewed in this article. Among those, matrine, tetrandrine and osthole draw particular attention, because they are effective mainly as interleukin-1 blockers, but not as arachidonate blockers. As a result, these agents are potent anti-inflammatory agents and are even more potent than the prototype corticosteroid, prednisolone. It is hoped that all aforementioned agents can be used to treat retinopathies resulting from ocular ischemia and/or ocular inflammation. Scoparone, corylifolinin, epigallocatechin-3-0-gallate, esculetin, and lespedezaflavanone A are some natural products which can improve retinal functions measured with electroretinogram's b-wave recovery. Further research should be carried out to relate natural products which can improve ocular blood flow and inflammation to retinal function and vice versa.

Modulation of the age‐related nuclear factor‐κB (NF‐κB) pathway by hesperetin

“…Our data further showed that hesperetin significantly decreased NF-κB and its related gene expressions such as COX-2, iNOS, VCAM-1, and ICAM-1. Moreover, other studies showed hesperetin reduced IL-1α which activated NF-κB and modulated inflammation (Liu & Chiou, 1996;Dekker et al., 2005). It is interesting to note that although hesperetin does not have a double bond at position C2-C3 of the C-ring, it still can modulate NF-κB and its related genes and cytokines.…”

Protective effect of oxymatrine on chronic rat heart failure

“…1. Basic and clinical research has shown that OMT possesses a variety of pharmacological effects, such as immune system regulation, anti-inflammation, anti-apoptosis, anti-virus, anti-tumor, and anti-arrhythmic [7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. OMT also exerts a protective effect against ischemia or ischemia/reperfusion damage in the liver and intestine [14,15].…”

Sophocarpine and matrine inhibit the production of TNF-α and IL-6 in murine macrophages and prevent cachexia-related symptoms induced by colon26 adenocarcinoma in mice

“…1. Basic and clinical researches have shown that these alkaloids possess variety of pharmacological effects such as anti-inflammation, immunity-regulation, antivirus, and anti-tumor [13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. Our previous studies [20][21][22][23] have found that matrine markedly inhibited the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines (TNF-α, IL-1, or IL-6) in LPS-stimulated murine peritoneal macrophages and Kupffer cells, and down-regulated the serum TNF-α and IL-6 level in several animal inflammation models.…”