Medicinal plants have shown great promise as a source of novel drug compounds for the treatment of inflammatory disorders. In our search for new entities with anti-inflammatory potential, the extracts of the whole plant of Saussurea heteromalla (family-Asteraceae), collected from Himalayas, were evaluated in the high throughput screen for TNF-α and IL-6 inhibitors. The extract blocked TNF-α and IL-6 production in LPS stimulated THP-1 cells (human acute monocyte leukemia cell line) completely at 10 and 30 μg/ml. The plant has been found as a new source of chlorojanerin, a guaianolide type of sesquiterpene lactone. Chlorojanerin was shown to be significantly effective in inhibiting TNF-α and IL-6 production in LPS-stimulated THP-1 cells (IC(50)=2.3±0.2 μM and 1.8±0.7 μM respectively). The compound also blocked TNF-α and IL-6 production from LPS-stimulated human monocytes (IC(50)=1.5±0.4 and 0.7±0.2 μM respectively) and synovial cells from a patient with rheumatoid arthritis (IC(50)<0.03 and 0.5 μM respectively). Transcriptional profiling of the LPS stimulated THP-1 cells revealed that chlorojanerin exerted its anti-inflammatory effect by inhibiting the expression of 8 genes involved in activating the transcription factor - NF-κB. Real time analysis of these genes validated the effect of chlorojanerin on the classical downstream targets of NF-κB. Thus, this study clearly delineated 8 genes which were specifically mitigated due to the effect of chlorojanerin on NF-κB induced signaling at the mRNA level. Further, chlorojanerin at 5 μM also inhibited the binding of NF-κB in a GFP reporter assay system by 55.5% thus validating the microarray gene expression data. This work is a step towards the isolation and characterization of lead anti-inflammatory agents from the extract of Saussurea heteromalla, which can be developed into better therapeutic molecules targeted towards some specific inflammatory diseases.
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