• The Journal of Internal Korean Medicine
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.334-347
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• 2008

Background and Objective : Haeyeol-tang, composed of Houttuyniae Herba, Lonicerae Flos, Taraxaci Herba, and Scrophulariae Radix, is widely used for alleviating the symptom of various kinds of inflammatory pulmonary disease, including asthma and COPD. We want to know whether Haeyeol-tang has an anti-inflammatory effect by analyzing expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Materials and Methods : We differentiated the THP-1 cells into macrophage-like cells by treatment with PMA. Inflammation was induced by treatment with LPS and PMA. We found the safe concentration of Haeyeol-tang by using MTS assay and used PD98059 as a negative control for comparison of anti-inflammatory effect of Haeyeol-tang. Results : The RT-PCR analysis results show that the cell survival rate is over 100% within 1 ng/mL to 1 ug/mL of Haeyeol-tang and begins to decrease under 100% at 10 ug/mL. The gene expression of $IL-1{\beta}$, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, $TNF-{\alpha}$ and $TGF-{\beta}$ levels were down-regulated when Haeyeol-tang was treated at concentrations between 1 ng/mL an 1 ug/mL on monocyte-derived macrophages. Interestingly, 1 ug/mL Haeyeol-tang-treated samples showed that the transcriptional activities of IL-8, $TNF-{\alpha}$, IL-10 and $TGF-{\beta}$ were more down-regulated than those of PD098059 $(TNF-{\alpha}$ inhibitor). At protein level, the ELISA analysis results showed that there were more remarkable (p<0.001) decreases in expression of $IL-1{\beta}$, IL-6, IL-8 and $TNF-{\alpha}$ on both the 1 ug/mL Haeyeol-tang-treated group and the PD98059-treated group than the LPS-treated group. Conclusion : We conclude that Haeyeol-tang has an anti-inflammatory effect by inhibiting expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines at mRNA and protein levels. These results may provide us a promising way to care for general inflammatory diseases as well as inflammatory pulmonary disease, including asthma and COPD, with further clinical study.