Back to Journals » Drug Design, Development and Therapy » Volume 8

Discovery and evaluation of asymmetrical monocarbonyl analogs of curcumin as anti-inflammatory agents
Authors Zhang Y, Zhao C, He W, Wang Z, Fang Q, Xiao B, Liu Z, Liang G, Yang S
Received 23 November 2013
Accepted for publication 15 January 2014
Published 4 April 2014 Volume 2014:8 Pages 373—382
DOI https://doi.org/10.2147/DDDT.S58168
Checked for plagiarism Yes
Review by Single anonymous peer review
Peer reviewer comments 5
Yali Zhang,1,2,* Chengguang Zhao,1,2,* Wenfei He,2,* Zhe Wang,2 Qilu Fang,2 Bing Xiao,2 Zhiguo Liu,2 Guang Liang,2 Shulin Yang1
1School of Environmental and Biological Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, Jiangsu, People's Republic of China; 2Chemical Biology Research Center, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Wenzhou Medical University, University Town, Wenzhou, Zhejiang, People's Republic of China
*These authors contributed equally to this work
Abstract: Sepsis is a systemic inflammatory response syndrome and is mainly caused by lipopolysaccharides (LPS) – a component of the cell walls of gram-negative bacteria, via toll-like receptor 4–mitogen-activated protein kinases/nuclear factor-kappa B-dependent proinflammatory signaling pathway. Here, we synthesized 26 asymmetric monocarbonyl analogs of curcumin and evaluated their anti-inflammatory activity by inhibiting the LPS-induced secretion of tumor necrosis factor-α and interleukin-6 in mouse RAW264.7 macrophages. Five active compounds (3a, 3c, 3d, 3j, and 3l) exhibited dose-dependent inhibition against the release of tumor necrosis factor-α and interleukin-6, and they also showed much higher chemical stability than curcumin in vitro. The anti-inflammatory activity of analogs 3a and 3c may be associated with their inhibition of the phosphorylation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase and the activation of nuclear factor-kappa B. In addition, 3c exhibited significant protection against LPS-induced septic death in vivo. These results indicate that asymmetrical monocarbonyl curcumin analogs may be utilized as candidates for the treatment of acute inflammatory diseases.
Keywords: sepsis, inflammatory cytokines, anti-inflammation, quantitative structure–activity relationship
This work is published and licensed by Dove Medical Press Limited. The full terms of this license are available at https://www.dovepress.com/terms.php and incorporate the Creative Commons Attribution - Non Commercial (unported, v3.0) License.
By accessing the work you hereby accept the Terms. Non-commercial uses of the work are permitted without any further permission from Dove Medical Press Limited, provided the work is properly attributed. For permission for commercial use of this work, please see paragraphs 4.2 and 5 of our Terms.