Nitric oxide (NO), which is synthesised by nitric oxide synthase (NOS) from L-arginine using NADPH and molecular oxygen, is a short-lived free radical and an intercellular messenger produced by a variety of mammalian cells, which include macrophages, neutrophils, platelets, fibroblasts, endothelium, neuronal, and smooth muscle cells. NO mediates a variety of biological actions ranging from vasodilatation, neurotransmission, inhibition of platelet adherence and aggregation, as well as the macrophage- and neutrophil-mediated killing of pathogens (Moncada et al., 1991, MacMicking et al., 1997; Oh et al., 2008). Chronic inflammation and infections lead to the up-regulation of a series of enzymes and signaling proteins in affected tissues and cells. The inducible forms of NOS are the most importantpro-inflammatory enzymes responsible for increasing the levels of NO. Three isoforms of NOS have been identified and are classified into the following two major categories: constitutive and inducible. Expression of iNOS catalyses the formation of large amounts of NO, which plays a key role in the pathogenesis of a variety of inflammatory diseases. Therefore, the level of NO induced by iNOS may reflect the degree of inflammation and provides an indicator to assess inflammatory processes. Recently, several iNOS inhibitors have been reported as being isolated from plants such as 4-O-methylhonokiol (Oh et al., 2009), fraxinellone (Kim et al., 2009), 6-gingerol (Lee et al., 2009), tanshinone IIA (Fan et al., 2009), and arctigenin (Zhao et al., 2009). In addition, most of the inhibitory activity of these compounds towards NO production has been demonstrated to be through the inhibition of iNOS expression.
đang được dịch, vui lòng đợi..