Effect of Coadministration of Berberine and Evodiamine on TNF-α and IL-8 Levels in AGS Cells

Abstract:

Objective: To investigate the effects of coadministration of berberine and evodiamine on cell growth, tumor necrosis factor-α(TNF-α) and interleukin(IL)-8 levels of gastric cancer cells(AGS) cells. Method: The inhibitory effect of coadministration of berberine and evodiamine on AGS cell growth was measured by MTT method. Cell cycle distributions were measured by flow cytometry. TNF-α and IL-8 contents were measured by ELISA method. Result: Coadministration of berberine (15 μmol·L^-1) and evodiamine (45 μmol·L^-1) triggered weaker inhibitory effect on the proliferation of AGS cells than that achieved by evodiamine alone, coadministration of berberine (83 μmol·L^-1) and evodiamine (1.4 μmol·L^-1) obtained slightly better inhibitory effect on the proliferation of AGS cells than that of berberine or evodiamine alone, however, their co-administration did not obtain better cell cycle arrest than berberine or evodiamine alone. Further studies showed that, co-administration of berberine (83 μmol·L^-1) and evodiamine (1.4 μmol·L^-1) induced the increase of TNF-α level in AGS cell culture supernatant which was superior to that triggered by usage of the two drugs alone. Berberine reduced IL-8 contents in the AGS cell culture supernatant but without significance difference, while, evodiamine could significantly enhance the IL-8 contents in AGS cells culture supernatant. Then their coadministration could significantly reduce the IL-8 levels in the AGS cell culture supernatant. Conclusion: Different doses of berberine and evodiamine combination can result in different effect on the proliferation of AGS cells. And berberine could inhibit the increase of IL-8 induced by evodiamine.