Trial to develop a useful pharmacological tool for regulating production and/or secretion of mucin, the macromolecular glycoproteins present in the airway mucus, is a promising approach to the effective control of severe inflammatory pulmonary diseases involving the hyperproduction and/or hypersecretion of airway mucus
14. As aforementioned in introduction, prunetin, a flavonoidal compound derived from licorice,
Glycyrrhiza glabra L., showed inhibition of activities of phosphodiesterase, aldehyde dehydrogenase, alcohol dehydrogenase and antioxidative activities
7-10 and showed inhibition of EGF- or PMA-induced MUC5AC protein and gene expression in MUC5AC-producing NCI-H292 cells
6. However, to the best of our knowledge, there are no reports about the effect of prunetin on mucin gene expression, production, degradation of IκB and translocation of NF-κB p65 stimulated by TNF-α in airway epithelial cells. As can be seen in results, we found that prunetin inhibited MUC5AC mucin gene expression and production of MUC5AC mucin protein, induced by TNF-α (
Figures 1,
2). This result suggests that prunetin can regulate mucin gene expression and production induced by TNF-α, through directly acting on airway epithelial cells. TNF-α has been reported to be a stimulant for secretion and gene expression of MUC5AC mucin in normal human airway epithelial cells
13,15,16. After binding its receptor, TNF-α activates several intracellular signal transduction cascades among which the NF-κB pathway is very important. The transcription factor NF-κB has been a potential therapeutic target. NF-κB is a heterodimer composed of p65, p50, and IκBα subunits present in the cytoplasm as an inactive state. In response to various stimuli, the IκBα subunit is phosphorylated and degraded, thereby facilitating the translocation of p50-p65 heterodimer to the nucleus. p50-p65 acts as a transcription factor regulating the expression of numerous genes including MUC5AC
17. As shown in results, prunetin affected the degradation of IκBα which is required for NF-κB activation of transcription. At 5 minutes after treatment, TNF-α showed the maximal induction of IκBα degradation. However, preincubation of NCI-H292 cells with prunetin prior to TNF-α exposure inhibited the degradation of IκBα (
Figure 3). Also, nuclear translocation of NF-κB p65 by TNFα was inhibited by pretreatment with 50 µM of prunetin. In the nuclear fraction of the TNF-α only-treated cells, there was an increase in nuclear translocation of p65 gradually and reached optimal level at 30 minutes. However, in the cells treated with prunetin plus TNF-α, the level of p65 was gradually decreased as compared to the TNF-α only-treated cells (
Figure 4). The result from this study suggests a possibility of using prunetin as a new efficacious mucoregulator for pulmonary diseases especially in conjunction with inflammation, although further studies are essential. Taken together, the inhibitory actions of prunetin on airway mucin gene expression and production might explain, at least in part, the traditional use of
Glycyrrhiza glabra L., as an anti-inflammatory and anti-allergic agent for airway inflammatory diseases, in traditional oriental medicine. We suggest it is valuable both to find the natural products that have specific inhibitory effects on mucin gene expression and/or production and to search the optimal chemical moieties derived from the chemical structure of prunetin which can be useful as an efficacious regulator for mucin production in hypersecretory status of various chronic pulmonary diseases, through future studies.