Division of Applied Biosciences, Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University, Kitashirakawa Oiwake-cho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8502, Japan.
Research Institute for Production and Development, 15 Shimogamo Morimoto-cho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-0805, Japan.
Nutrients. 2021 Oct 21;13(11):3699. doi: 10.3390/nu13113699.
Carotenoids are natural lipophilic pigments with substantial health benefits. Numerous studies have demonstrated the anti-inflammatory activities of carotenoids, especially toward lipopolysaccharide-induced inflammatory responses. As such, there are few reports on the evaluation and comparison of the anti-inflammatory activities of carotenoids against inflammation induced by other stimuli. In this study, we used pathogen-associated molecular patterns, proinflammatory cytokines, degenerated proteins, and chemical irritants as inflammatory inducers to evaluate the anti-inflammatory activities of eight different carotenoids. Each carotenoid showed characteristic anti-inflammatory activities; thus, we conducted a multivariate analysis to clarify the differences among them. Unsubstituted β-ring (i.e., provitamin A) and C8-keto structures of carotenoids were found to be crucial for their inhibitory effects on the activation of nuclear factor-kappa B and interferon regulatory factors, respectively. Furthermore, we found that β-carotene and echinenone treatment increased intracellular retinoid levels in monocytes and that the retinoids showed the similar activities to β-carotene and echinenone. Taken together, the intake of both provitamin A and C8-keto carotenoids (e.g., siphonaxanthin and fucoxanthin) might be effective in improving the inflammatory status of individuals. A multivariate analysis of anti-inflammatory activities is a useful method for characterizing anti-inflammatory compounds.
类胡萝卜素是具有重要健康益处的天然亲脂性色素。许多研究表明类胡萝卜素具有抗炎活性，尤其是针对脂多糖诱导的炎症反应。因此，关于评估和比较类胡萝卜素对其他刺激物引起的炎症的抗炎活性的报道很少。在这项研究中，我们使用病原体相关分子模式、促炎细胞因子、变性蛋白和化学刺激物作为炎症诱导剂，来评估八种不同类胡萝卜素的抗炎活性。每种类胡萝卜素都表现出特征性的抗炎活性；因此，我们进行了多元分析以阐明它们之间的差异。未取代的β-环（即维生素 A 原）和类胡萝卜素的 C8-酮结构被发现分别对核因子-κB 和干扰素调节因子的激活具有抑制作用。此外，我们发现β-胡萝卜素和海胆烯酮处理可增加单核细胞内视黄醇水平，并且视黄醇表现出与β-胡萝卜素和海胆烯酮相似的活性。总之，摄入维生素 A 原和 C8-酮类胡萝卜素（例如，岩藻黄质和岩藻黄素）可能有效改善个体的炎症状态。抗炎活性的多元分析是一种用于表征抗炎化合物的有用方法。
