Alpha-mangostin could be beneficial to the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. - GreenMedInfo Summary
α-Mangostin, a natural xanthone, induces apoptosis and ROS accumulation in human rheumatoid fibroblast-like synoviocyte MH7A cells.
Curr Mol Med. 2017 Dec 5. Epub 2017 Dec 5. PMID: 29210647
J Zhang
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune disease with the characteristics of progressive joint destruction, deformity and disability. The present study was designed to investigate the effects of a set of natural products, includingα-mangostin on MH7A cells, human rheumatoid fibroblast-like synoviocytes and to explore the underlying mechanisms. MH7A cells were treated with natural products to evaluate the effects on MH7A cell viability and α-mangostin was proven to be the most effective one to inhibit cell viability. To further identify whether cell viability inhibition was related to apoptosis, 4',6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) staining and flow cytometry were used to analyze the apoptosis and α-mangostin was found to increase nuclear condensation and also the Annexin V-FITC positive cells. In addition, α-mangostin also dramatically increased the ratio of Bax/Bcl-2 proteins in a concentration-dependent manner. Finally, α-mangostin significantly increased the level of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in MH7A cells. Together, these results for the first time demonstrated that α-mangostin could promote apoptosis of MH7A cells through increasing ROS accumulation and the ratio of Bax/Bcl-2, suggesting that α-mangostin should be beneficial to the treatment of RA.