Abstract

Cyclic phosphodiesterase 4 (PDE4) belongs to family of cyclic phosphodiesterases, which are expressed predominantly in inflammatory cells, airway smooth muscles, cardiovascular tissues and brain. Inhibitors of this family of enzymes found medicinal applications as antidepressants, antiinflamatory drugs (mainly in airway diseases) or antiasthmatics (Ibudilast). PDE4 inhibitors are also being tested for preventing the development of for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer or Parkinson diseases. An example of PDE4 inhibitor that is already used in medicin is Ibudilast- asthma drug. It is known that phytochemicals can affect cyclic phosphodiesterase activity, for example coffee extract is known to be a very strong inhibitor of PDE4. It was also demonstrated that anthocyanidins like malvidin or paconidin found in e.g. grapes that have methoxy groups in their B-ring are potent PDE inhibitors. It is however less recognized whether other abundant plant anthocyanins, which are anthocyanidines glucosides also display such inhibitory properties. The purpose of this research was to get to examine the ability of whole plant extracts to influence PDE activity with special focus on anthocyans and the impact of food matrix. The study compared white and red fruit/vegetables belonging to the same species. The tested extracts originated from: yellow and red mirabelle plum, white and red grapes, as well as white and red cabbage. Red plants were expected to contain similar composition of phytochemicals additionally enriched in anthocyanins. PDE4 activity was determined according to the method of Pöch [Pöch, 1971] with slight modifications. In this method the rate of turnover of cAMP to 5’-AMP by PDE is used to determine this enzyme activity. The PDE assay results showed the dose-dependent inhibition of PDE4 activity- by plant extracts. White/yellow plant extracts showed more powerful PDE inhibiting ability than their red counterparts in the case of all studied plants. Based on our findings it could be concluded that anthocyanins (glucosides) may rather stimulate than inhibit PDE4 activity

Authors (4)