Depigmentation of Melanocytes by the Treatment of Extracts from Traditional Chinese Herbs: a Cell Culture Assay

Abstract

Current therapies are still unsatisfied for skin pigmentation disease conditions. Furthermore, Asian women prefer lighter skin color and there is a great demand to develop more safe and effective skin whitening agents. Recently, many efforts have been paid to develop new therapeutic agents against pigmentation abnormalities, especially using novel biologically active compounds from natural plants. Many tyrosinase inhibitors that suppress melanogenesis have been actively studied with the aim of developing new whitening agents. 1-3)Medicinal plants are most suitable for pharmacological research and drug development, because their constituents can be used not only as therapeutic agents but also as starting materials or models for the synthesis of drugs or pharmacologically active compounds. We are interested in re-evaluation of traditional Chinese herbs on melanogenesis from huge resources of famous whitening formulations and recipes in ancient literature. Traditional Chinese medicine has been used for the treatment of chloasma for a long history. Many famous ancient formulations and recipes are still in use to treat pigmentation disorders. Though these drugs were reported to be clinically effective in China, the mechanism and the active components have not been studied yet. Evaluation of Chinese herbal medicine in the treatment of skin pigmentation abnormalities may be beneficial for the development of new and more efficient remedies. In China, search for depigmentation medicine from traditional Chinese herbs is currently focused on those having inhibitory activity to tyrosinase. In a previous screening study performed by Japanese researchers with mushroom tyrosinase, several extracts of crude traditional Chinese drugs showed highly inhibitory activity. 4) Results from these studies provided important information about traditional Chinese herbs on melanogenesis. However, melanin biosyntheis is a complicated process involving many factors including the key enzymes tyrosinase, tyrosinase related protein-1 (TRP-1), tyrosinase related protein-2 (TRP-2), cytokines from autocrine and paracrine and those related to melanin transportation and decomposition. 5,6) Mushroom tyrosinase test is a simple method but with some disadvantages. Plant tyrosinase is different from mammalian tyrosinase because of its unique requirements for substrate and cofactor as well as its different sensitivity to inhibitors. 7,8) Several papers published in Chinese indicated that many plant extracts showing inhibitory activity to mushroom tyrosinase in vitro did not reduce pigmentation activity in cells. Also, some compounds tested on mammalian tyrosinase did not give comparable results with mushroom tyrosinase.9) Thus, this study was undertaken to evaluate the depigmentation effect of traditional Chinese herbs based on melanocyte cell culture assays. MATERIALS AND METHODS Preparation of Herb ExtractsIdentification of the herbs used in this study was provided by the Union Bioengineering Institute (Beijing, China). The raw herbs were extracted wit...

Depigmentation of Melanocytes by (2Z,8Z)-Matricaria Acid Methyl Ester Isolated from Erigeron breviscapus

“…The resulting mixtures were fil- trated and concentrated to dryness at 40°C under vacuum to produce a methanol extract (14 g). 13) Subsequently, the extract was suspended in water, and re-extracted by hexane to yield the non-polar fraction (1 g). The hexane fraction was column chromatographed on a silica gel and eluted with hexane-chloroform 55 : 45 where 117.5 mg of active compound was obtained.…”

“…The cells were then seeded into a 6 well plate at a concentration of 0.8ϫ10 5 cells/ml and 24-well plate with 0.4ϫ10 5 cells/ml. 13) MTT assay was performed to examine the viability of cells. Briefly, B16F10 cells or melan-a cells were seeded at an appropriate cell density.…”

Whitening Effect of Extracts and Fractions from Diospyros kaki calyx

“…따라서 최근에는 세포 에 영향을 미치지 않으며 멜라닌 합성을 감소시키는 천연 미 백제에 대한 연구가 활발히 진행 중이다. 천연물을 원료로 한 미백 기능성 소재로는 신선초 [23], 마황 [32], 백출 [5], 찔레 [7], 복분자 [21] [10]. 감꼭지 추출물과 분획물에 의한 멜라노마 세포의 생존율 을 확인한 결과 (Fig.…”

Sebumetric and mexametric evaluation of a fennel based cream

“…Currently, the use of plant-based natural antioxidants, such as those containing phenolic substances like flavonoids and phenolic acids and tocopherols in foods, as well as preventive and therapeutic medicine, is gaining much recognition 6 . Plants are appropriate for pharmaceutical research and drug development, because their constituents can be used not only as therapeutic agents but also as starting materials or models for the synthesis of drugs or pharmacologically active compounds 7 . Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) is a plant belonging to the family Apiaceae with a long history of herbal uses.…”