Anti-inflammatory effect of chaya extracts fractions

Abstract

Patients with Type 2 diabetes often experience chronic inflammation due to the overexpression of NFkB-regulated pro-inflammatory proteins, such as TNF-alpha, IL-6 and IL-1. Chaya (Cnidoscolus aconitifolius) extracts have been reported to decrease this expression, but fractions of these extracts have not been studied. The present work focused on determining the anti-inflammatory effect of fractions of aqueous extracts of chaya. The phenolic content fractions of the sample were determined by solid-phase extraction and traced with HPLC-MS-MS, and the activation of the NF-kB factor and the concentration of the pro-inflammatory proteins TNF-alpha and IL-6 were evaluated using streptozotocin-induced diabetes rats. Two of the fractions showed the best effect, in fact, better than the crude fraction, which contains the highest amount of compounds. The presence of ferulic acid in the determined chemical profile suggests that it may be involved in the observed anti-inflammatory effect, while narigenin and apigenin, which are only present in the crude fraction, may be inhibiting the effect, which could explain why this fraction showed a better performance.