Nitidine chloride exerts anti-inflammatory action by targeting Topoisomerase I and enhancing IL-10 production.

In the effort to identify natural products that regulate immunity and inflammation, we found that nitidine chloride (NC), an alkaloid from herb Zanthoxylum nitidum, enhanced IL-10 production in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated myeloid cells. While NC was shown to be capable of inhibiting topoisomerase I (TOP1), NC analogs that could not inhibit TOP1 failed to increase IL-10 production. Moreover, medicinal TOP1 inhibitors TPT and SN-38 also augmented IL-10 production significantly, whereas knockdown of TOP1 prevented NC, TPT, and SN-38 from enhancing IL-10 expression. Thus, NC promoted IL-10 production by inhibiting TOP1. In LPS-induced endotoxemic mice, NC and TOP1 inhibitors increased IL-10 production, suppressed inflammatory responses, and reduced mortality remarkably. The anti-inflammatory activities of TOP1 inhibition were markedly reduced by IL-10-neutralizing antibody and largely absent in IL-10-deficient mice. In LPS-stimulated RAW264.7 cells and in peritoneal macrophages from endotoxemic mice, NC and TOP1 inhibitors significantly enhanced the activation of Akt, a critical signal transducer for IL-10 production, and inhibition of Akt prevented these compounds from enhancing IL-10 production and ameliorating endotoxemia. These data indicated that NC and TOP1 inhibitors are able to exert anti-inflammatory action through enhancing Akt-mediated IL-10 production and may assist with the treatment of inflammatory diseases.