Effect of ephedrine on expression of interleukin-8 in human bronchial epithelial cells
LI Zhongyan
DENG Jun
XIONG Bin
XIONG Ying
WANG Songping
Abstract：Objective To observe the effect of ephedrine on the expression of interleukin-8 ( IL-8) in human bronchi-al epithelial cells (16HBE cells) and to explore the mechanism of ephedra in treatment of asthma.Methods The 16HBE cells were randomly divided into three groups: group A, group B and group C.Groups A and B were respectively added with TNF-α(20 ng/mL) and TNF-α(20 ng/mL) +ephedrine (300μg/mL) in vitro for culture, but no treatment in group C.After cells were incubated for 18 hours, IL-8 mRNA level was measured by real-time PCR and protein expression by Western blotting.The IL-8 in cell culture supernatant was quantified by ELISA.Results The mRNA and protein ex-pression levels of IL-8 in 16HBE cells of groups A and B were higher than those of group C (B﹥A﹥C), and the statis-tical difference was significant among the three groups ( all P<0.05) .The protein expression of IL-8 in the supernatant of groups A and B was (27.24 ±1.91) and (23.62 ±3.40) pg/mL, which was higher than that of group C (17.45 ±2.32) pg/mL ( all P<0.05) .Significant difference was found in the IL-8 protein of the supernatant between groups A and B ( P<0.05).Conclusion Ephedrine can inhibit the expression and secretion of IL-8 in 16HBE cells stimulated by TNF-α, which may be one of the mechanisms of ephedra in treatment of asthma.
Keywords：asthma ephedrinebronchial epithelial cellsinterleukin-8
Publication Date：2016-01-01
Online Publishing Date：2025-08-15(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：3( 19-21 )