RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Effect of Sasa senanensis Rehder Extract on NO and PGE2 Production by Activated Mouse Macrophage-like RAW264.7 Cells JF In Vivo JO In Vivo FD International Institute of Anticancer Research SP 773 OP 777 VO 23 IS 5 A1 LI ZHOU A1 KEN HASHIMOTO A1 KAZUE SATOH A1 YOSHIKO YOKOTE A1 MADOKA KITAJIMA A1 TAKAAKI OIZUMI A1 HIROSHI OIZUMI A1 HIROSHI SAKAGAMI YR 2009 UL http://iv.iiarjournals.org/content/23/5/773.abstract AB Alkaline extract of Sasa senanensis Rehder (SE) has shown diverse biological activity. As an extension, whether SE affects the function of activated macrophages was investigated. SE inhibited the nitric oxide (NO) production by lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-activated mouse macrophage-like RAW264.7 cells. Western blot and RT-PCR analyses demonstrated that this was due to the inhibition of inducible NO synthase (iNOS) expression at both protein and mRNA levels. ESR spectroscopy shows that SE dose-dependently scavenged the NO radical produced by NOC-7. In order to confirm the anti-inflammatory potency, possible effects on prostaglandin (PG) E2 production and expression of enzymes involved in the arachidonic acid pathway were next investigated. It was found that SE effectively inhibited the PGE2 production by LPS-stimulated RAW264.7 cells, although the extent of inhibition of PGE2 was slightly less than that of NO production. SE inhibited cyclooxygenase (COX)-2 expression at both protein and mRNA levels, but to much lesser extents as compared with those for iNOS expression. SE contained much lower concentration of arginine, precursor of NO, as compared with the culture medium. These data suggest that SE exerts a weak anti-inflammatory activity.