IN VITRO ANTI-INFLAMMATORY AND HEPATOPROTECTIVE ACTIVITY OF TURMESAC®

Objective: In this study, we investigated the hepatoprotective activity of Turmesac® on Human liver cells (HepG2 cell line) and anti-inflammatory effect on Murine macrophages (Raw 264.7 cell line) by flow Cytometry. Methods: Cell viability of HepG2 and Raw 264.7 cells determined by the MTT [3-(4,5-Dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-Diphenyltetrazolium Bromide] assay to identify a non-cytotoxic concentration of Turmesac® for the respective cell lines after 24 h exposure period. Further hepatoprotective effect of Turmesac® was performed in H2O2 treated liver cells using H2DCF-DA staining by flow cytometry. The anti-inflammatory potency of Turmesac® was evaluated in Lipopolysaccharide (LPS 2µg/ml) stimulated Murine Raw 264.7 macrophages by measuring the relative fluorescence intensity of 2 cytokines, Interleukin-8(IL-8) and (Interleukin-12) IL-12 by flow cytometric analysis. Results: Turmesac® concentrations of less than 50μg/ml did not show significant cytotoxicity on both HepG2 and Raw 264.7, cell lines following the treatment period of 24 h and selected 50μg/ml as the optimum concentration for hepatoprotective and anti-inflammatory models. The reactive oxygen species (ROS) study revealed that Turmesac® (50μg/ml) effectively suppressed the H2DCF-DA expression in HepG2 cells. Secondly, Turmesac® significantly suppressed the anti-inflammatory cytokine expressions of IL-8 and IL-12 in LPS pre-stimulated cells categorising as a potentially potent anti-inflammatory drug. The mean fluorescence intensity percentage of IL-8 is control 8.86, LPS 50.49, Turmesac® 19.63 and IL12 is control 10.41, LPS 68.94, and Turmesac® 15.79 respectively. Conclusion: This study highlighted that Turmesac® could be considered as a promising hepatoprotective and anti-inflammatory compound and a therapeutic agent in curing liver-related and inflammation-related diseases.