A cold water extract of Fucus vesiculosus inhibits lipopolysaccharide (LPS) induced pro-inflammatory responses in the porcine colon ex-vivo model

- Anti-inflammatory activity of three extracts of F. vesiculosus were evaluated.
- Cold water extract (CWE) of F. vesiculosus exhibited strong anti-inflammatory activity in-vitro.
- CWE down-regulated the expression of inflammatory markers in porcine colonic tissue ex-vivo.
- Effects of the CWE were mediated through inhibition of NF-κB, MAPK and AP-1 pro-inflammatory pathways.

The objectives of this experiment were to compare the in-vitro anti-inflammatory activity of crude extracts (cold water (CWE), hot water and 80% ethanol extract) of F. vesiculosus and to predict the key molecular targets of the extract with most anti-inflammatory activity in-vitro. In TNF-α challenged Caco-2 cells, of the three crude extracts, the CWE exhibited maximum inhibition of IL-8 production. In the ex-vivo challenged porcine colonic tissue, CWE inhibited the expression (> 2 fold) of inflammatory mediators (PTGS2, C5, LYZ), cytokines (IL17A, IL8), chemokines (CCL2, CXCL2, CXCL10, CXCL11), cell adhesion molecules (ICAM1, VCAM1), toll like receptors (TLR4, TLR7) and components of NF-κB (NFKB1, RELB), MAPK (MAP3K8) and AP-1 (CJUN) pathways. The gene expression analysis suggest that the CWE does contain immunomodulatory bioactive compound/s that mediated through the interferon regulatory system 2, TNF-α inducing protein 3 and TNF-α receptor 2 and thus has potential application for human and animal health.