New cembranoid with potent anti-inflammatory effect isolated from Boswellia sacra by inactivating the NF-κB signaling pathway

Abstract

Boswellia sacra has the properties of activating blood circulation, fixing pain, subduing swelling and promoting muscle growth. However, the anti-inflammatory active ingredients and molecular mechanisms of Boswellia sacra are still not clearly explored. Boswellia sacra was grounded and extracted using 95% ethanol, the extracts were separated by column chromatography preparation to give compounds. Spectral analysis and quantum calculations confirmed the structures of compounds and identified compound 1 as a new compound. Compounds 1–3 showed potent inhibitory activities and their effects on inflammatory mediator NO and inflammatory cytokines were examined by ELISA assay. Furthermore, their modulatory mechanism on inflammatory signal pathways was explored.

Keywords:

• Boswellia sacra
• diterpenoid
• anti-inflammatory activity
• natural products

Author contributions

XRY and LQW participated in designing experiments, carried out the experiments in this study, prepared the first draft and revising of this manuscript. FZ and FQ contributed in manuscript revision. BYZ performed a part of experiments. ZY and WFW wrote and revised a part of this article. All authors approved the final manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially by the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (ZR2019ZD24), the National College Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program (S202011066001), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82304696), the Graduate Innovation Foundation of Yantai University (GGIFYTU2333).