Differential effect of herbal tea extracts on free fatty acids-, ethanol- and acetaminophen-induced hepatotoxicity in FL83B hepatocytes

Abstract

In recent years, herbal tea consumption becomes popular because of the potential health benefits and attractive flavors. However, there is also a growing concern that herbal supplements contribute to the drug-drug/drug-herb interactions and hepatotoxicity. In this study, FL83B mouse hepatocytes were used as an in vitro mode of hepatotoxicity induced by free fatty acids, including palmitic acid (PA) and oleic acid (OA), ethanol, and acetaminophen. Herbal tea extracts were obtained from eight common herbal plants, including Verbena officinalis L., Hyssopus officinalis L., Salvia officinalis L., Urtica dioica L., Hemerocallis fulva (L.) L., Citrus maxima (Burm.) Merr., Citrus limon (L.) Osbeck, and Ficus formosana Maxim. MTT assay was used to evaluate the impact of these herbal tea extracts on hepatoxocitity. We found that these herbal tea extracts per se did not exhibit hepatotoxicity, and had no effect on OA-induced hepatotoxicity. However, extracts from Verbena officinalis L., Hyssopus officinalis L., Salvia officinalis L., and Hemerocallis fulva (L.) L. exhibited protective effect against PA-induced hepatotoxicity. In addition, herbal tea extracts from Verbena officinalis L., Hyssopus officinalis L., Salvia officinalis L., Urtica dioica L., Hemerocallis fulva (L.) L., and Ficus formosana Maxim. exhibited protective effect against acetaminophen-induced hepatotoxicity. Interestingly, all these herbal tea extracts enhanced ethanol-induced hepatotoxicity. Our results suggest that herbal tea extracts have differential effects on different modes of hepatotoxicity.

Keywords:

• Acetaminophen
• alcohol
• free fatty acids
• herbal tea
• hepatotoxicity

Authors’ contributions

GWC participated in the design of the study and drafted the manuscript. TYC prepared herbal tea extracts and performed experiments. PMY conceived and designed experiments, as well as coordinated and drafted the manuscript. All authors gave final approval for publication.

Acknowledgement

We thank the financial supported by the “WanFang Hospital, Chi-Mei Medical Center, and Hualien Tzu-Chi Hospital Joing Cancer Center Grant-Focus on Colon Cancer Research” from the Health and welfare surcharge of tobacco products of Taiwan, and the “TMU Research Center of Cancer Translational Medicine” from The Featured Areas Research Center Program within the framework of the Higher Education Sprout Project by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Taiwan.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the University System of Taipei Joint Research Program under Grant number USTP-NTOU-TMU-107–02; Health and welfare surcharge of tobacco products of Taiwan under Grant number MOHW108-TDU-B-212–124020; Ministry of Education under Grant number DP2-108–21121-01-C-03–05; Ministry of Science and Technology under Grant number MOST108-2314-B-038–010.