Efeito do triterpeno uvaol sobre a ativação de células epiteliais

Abstract

Exacerbated inflammation is involved in the pathogenesis of different diseases, including asthma. The allergic asthma is a complex process involving different types of molecules and cells. Among them, epithelial are major players since they act as a physical barrier, separating the external environment from the internal lung environment. In this context, preventing epithelial cell death and the consequent release of pro-inflammatory mediators is extremely important for reducing allergies and inflammation. Among the strategies to discover new drugsand compounds, several natural products have been studied for their biopharmacological actions. A such, uvaol is a compoundfound in several types of foods, and it has cytoprotective and anti-inflammatory activity in different cell types. Thus, our objective was to evaluate the effects of uvaol on the activation of epithelial cells in vitro. As results, the A23187 stimulus (1,5 and 10µM) and the treatment with uvaol (10, 50 and 100 µM) were tested on A549 epithelial cells and analyzed by MTT. Cell death by apoptosis was assessed through flow cytometry. The production of reactive nitrogen species (RNS) was quantified by Griess staining, while the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) was measured by DFCH-DA. Our results showed that 2 hours stimulus with 5 µM of A23187 displayed a 50% reduction in cell viability. Pretreatment with uvaol was able to partially reverse the reduction in cell viability at a concentration of 10 µM. The 5 µM A23187 stimulushad a tendency to increase cell death due to apoptosis, although uvaol was not able to reverse this process. Also, uvaol unchanged RNS and ROS production. Therefore, our work showed that uvaol hadonly partial cytoprotective effects, but more experiments are needed to elucidate its functions and mechanisms of action.