Abstract

Stephania venosa (Blume) Spreng. is a medicinal herb wildly used as a folklore medicine in Thailand. Many studies have reported that S. venosa tuber revealed a variety of pharmacological activities including anti-malarial, anti-microbial, anti-cancer, anti-oxidant, and anti-inflammatory activities. In this study, we investigated the effects of (–)-stephanine and dehydrostephanine isolated from S. venosa tuber on anti-inflammation in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-activated RAW264.7 macrophages. RAW264.7 cells were treated with (–)-stephanine and dehydrostephanine in the presence of LPS and cell viability was determined by MTT assay. The levels of inflammatory mediators, nitric oxide (NO) and pro-inflammatory cytokines were determined by Griess reagent and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, respectively. Pre-treatment of dehydrostephanine significantly suppressed NO secretion in LPS-activated RAW264.7 cells with the half-maximal NO inhibitory concentration (IC<inf>50</inf>) value of 26.81±0.25 μM. However, (–)-stephanine had IC<inf>50</inf> value on the inhibition of NO secretion of >40 μM. In addition, dehydrostephanine at concentrations of 20-80 μM significantly reduced LPS-induced tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin-1β, and interleukin-6 production in RAW264.7 cells. The present study showed that dehydrostephanine possesses the anti-inflammatory effect on LPS-activated RAW264.7 macrophages by suppression of inflammatory mediators. Dehydrostephanine may be a promising candidate compound for further investigation of a novel class of anti-inflammatory drug.