You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Original research
Bronchodilatory effect of higenamine as antiallergic asthma treatment
  1. Jing Du1,
  2. Entezar Mehrabi Nasab2,
  3. Seyyed Shamsadin Athari3,
  4. Linlin Qian4
  1. 1 Department of Hospital Infection Management, The Fourth People's Hospital of Chengdu, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
  2. 2 Department of Cardiology, School of Medicine, Tehran Heart Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran (the Islamic Republic of)
  3. 3 Department of Immunology, School of Medicine, Zanjan University of Medical Sciences, Zanjan, Iran (the Islamic Republic of)
  4. 4 Department of General Surgery, Yancheng No.1 Peoples's Hospital, Yancheng, Jiangsu Province, China
  1. Correspondence to Professor Linlin Qian, General Surgery, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu 224000, China; xuelinwuhengn{at}sina.com

Abstract

Asthma is a complex airway disease that affects more than 350 million humans worldwide. Allergic asthma symptoms are induced by Th2 immune response with the release of cytokines and allegro-inflammatory mediators that amplify the inflammatory response, airway hyper-responsiveness (AHR) and hyperproduction of mucus. Higenamine, as a chemical compound, is a β2 adrenoreceptor agonist and can be used as bronchodilator in allergic asthma.

BALB/c mice were allocated in four groups and then allergic asthma was induced in three groups. One of the asthmatic groups was treated with albuterol and other one was treated with higenamine. At least, methacholine challenge to determine the AHR, measurement of cytokines, total immunoglobulin E (IgE), LTB4 and LTC4 levels, evaluation of gene expression of Muc5ac, Muc5b, Agr2 and Arg1, and histopathological study were done.

Higenamine treatment reduced AHR, interleukin (IL)-4, IL-13 levels, mRNA expression of MUC5ac, MUC5b, Arg1 and Agr2, goblet cell hyperplasia and mucus hypersecretion. Higenamine had no significant effect on IL-5, interferon-γ (INF-γ), IgE, LTB4, LTC4 levels and eosinophilic inflammation in lung tissue.

Higenamine treatment controls asthma acute attack and breathlessness and can be used as asthma treatment with control of AHR and decrease of airflow obstruction and mucus hypersecretion and had allegro-immune-regulatory effect. But higenamine treatment had no notable effect on the inflammation and inflammatory factors.

  • respiratory system
  • asthma

Data availability statement

Data are available upon reasonable request.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/jim-2021-002173

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Data availability statement

    Data are available upon reasonable request.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Contributors JD, EMN, SSA, and LQ participated in the laboratory evaluation and drafting of the manuscript. SSA and LQ supervised the study. JD is responsible for the overall content as the guarantor.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.