Baicalein mechanisms

Anti-hepatitis B virus activity in vitro and in vivo was also found in wogonin and baicalein (Fig. 4), the major active constituents of the traditional Chinese medicine Scutellaria radix.More recently, Blach-Olszewska et al investigated the effect of baicalein and wogonin on two important mechanisms of innate immunity The secretion of cytokines, and the natural resistance of human leukocytes to viral infection. The results obtained indicate that these fiavonoids modulate cytokine production, that is they inhibit interferons-a and -y, and stimulate tumor necrosis factor-a and interleukin production. They also augment the resistance of peripheral blood leukocytes to the vesicular stomatitis virus. 

Alzheimer s disease, first because of the chronic inflammation which occurs in this illness, and second because the neurodegeneration associated with Alzheimer s is related to the accumulation of amyloid p peptide. Thus, studies with the 12-LOX inhibitor baicalein found that this compound attenuated both neuronal apoptosis as well as the c-jun protein over-expression induced by amyloid P peptide (25-35) on rat cortical cells. In contrast, neither the broad spectrum LOX inhibitor NDGA nor the 5-LOX inhibitor caffeic acid exhibited cell protecting effects [138]. As for baicalein s mechanism of action, Chang et al. [139] demonstrated that the apoptotic effect of this compound on human Hep G2 cells was induced by mitochondrial dysfunction and Bcl-2 regulation. 

Finally, due to the above conqretitive mechanism, quercetin, quercetagetin, m)uicetin, and especially baicalein were potent inhibitors of murine leukemia virus (MLV) (Rauscher and Moloney strains) and HTV-l reverse transcriptases (Ono et al. 1989). Comparative studies with other flavonoids (hydroxyflavones, dihydroxyflavones and polyhydroxyflavones, and flavanones) revealed that the presence of both the unsaturated double bond between po-... 

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