Excellent Anti-aging Effects of Ursolic acid and Oleanolic acid Present in Ligustrum lucidum

Abstract

Ligustrum lucidum (L. lucidum) contains large quantities of ursolic acid and oleanolic acid. In this study, we evaluated anti-wrinkle effects of three parts of L. lucidum extracts. We found that L. lucidum extracts were not only innocuous to human skin fibroblasts but also significantly decreased the expression of both MMP-1 and MMP-2 and increased the expression of COL1A1. Among the three parts of L. lucidum extracts (i.e., fruit, cane, and leaf extracts), the fruit extract was found to contain the greatest amounts of ursolic acid and oleanolic acid. These three parts of L. lucidum extracts increased the expression of COL1A1 and decreased the expression of MMP-1 and MMP-2 in a dose-dependent manner. Especially, the fruit extract of L. lucidum had the greatest upregulating effect on COL1A1 and the greatest downregulating effect on MMP-1 and MMP-2 in a non-toxic and dose-dependent manner. These results suggest that L. lucidum, especially the fruit, could be used as active ingredients for functional cosmetics.

Potential Role of Oleanolic and Ursolic Acids from Food and Plant Materials as Natural Ingredients for the Cosmetic Industry: A Review

“…Both OA and UA downregulated the MMP-1 and MMP-2 expression in human fibroblast HS683 cells treated with LPS to induce inflammation. 128 OA also regulated the gene expression of MMP-1, MMP-3, and MMP-13 in rabbit articular chondrocytes treated with IL-1β to induce inflammation. 68 These data suggest that OA and UA might combat acne vulgaris progression through the inhibition of pro-inflammatory molecules.…”

“…In consequence, OA and UA have decreased the expression of different types of MMPs of dermatological importance in different models, such as fibroblast HS683 cells, rabbit articular chondrocytes, and in HaCaT keratinocytes . Also, OA and UA have previously exhibited an increase in the COL1A1 expression in human fibroblast HS683 cells, while OA has also increased COL2A1 expression . UA has also been evidenced to increase collagen and hyaluronic acid production in hDF cells .…”

Discovery of potent telomerase activators: Unfolding new therapeutic and anti-aging perspectives

“…Zhang et al investigated whether OA has an effect on longevity in vivo in Caenorhabditis elegans and they showed that indeed OA could extend the lifespan by increasing resistance to stress and reducing the intracellular reactive oxygen species in wild-type worms (41). Another study evaluating the anti-wrinkle effects of OA, showed that not only it was innocuous to human skin fibroblasts, but could also significantly decrease the expression of both matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-1 and MMP-2, and increase that of collagen type I alpha 1 chain (COL1A1), thus promoting collagen synthesis (42).…”

Oleanolic acid rejuvenates testicular function through attenuating germ cell DNA damage and apoptosis via deactivation of NF-κB, p53 and p38 signalling pathways

“…OA, the active component from L. lucidum Ait., has been reported not only to suppress expression of NF‐kB p65, Bax and cleaved caspase‐3, and upregulate Bcl‐2 expression in brain of mice treated by d ‐galactose, but also induce mouse embryonic stem cell 1B10 and R1/E (MESC‐R1/E) to differentiate towards germ cells . Furthermore, OA has excellent antiageing effects on Caenorhabditis elegans and human skin fibroblasts . However, there is no information about the effects of OA on testicular dysfunction and inflammation response in a natural ageing rat model.…”

“…[19,20] Furthermore, OA has excellent antiageing effects on Caenorhabditis elegans and human skin fibroblasts. [17,31] However, there is no information about the effects of OA on testicular dysfunction and inflammation response in a natural ageing rat model. Our results showed that OA significantly improved ageing-related degenerative change of testis.…”