Journal
JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL AND FOOD CHEMISTRY
Volume 59, Issue 5, Pages 1697-1704Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/jf104018u
Keywords
Flavonoid; Radix Astragali; hypoxia-inducible factor; erythropoietin
Funding
- Research Grants Council of Hong Kong (HKUST) [6419/06M, N_HKUST629/07, 662608]
- Croucher Foundation [CAS-CF07/08. SC03]
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Radix Astragali (RA) is commonly used as a health food supplement to reinforce the body vital energy. Flavonoids, including fornnononetin, ononin, calycosin, and calycosin-7-O-beta-D-glucoside, are considered to be the major active ingredients within RA. Here, we provided different lines of evidence that the RA flavonoids stimulated the expression of erythropoietin (EPO), the central regulator of red blood cell mass, in cultured human embryonic kidney fibroblasts (HER293T). A plasmid containing hypoida response element (HRE), a critical regulator for EPO transcription, was tagged upstream of a firefly luciferase gene, namely, pHRE-Luc, which was being transfected into fibroblasts. The application of RA flavonoids onto the transfected cells induced the transcriptional activity of HRE. To account for the transcriptional activation after the treatment of flavonoids, the expression of hypoxia-inducible factor-1 alpha (HIF-1 alpha) was markedly increased: The increase was in both mRNA and protein levels. In addition, the degradation of HIF-1 alpha was reduced under the effect of flavonoids. The regulation of HIF-1 alpha therefore could account for the activation of EPO expression mediated by the RA flavonoids. The current results therefore reveal the function of this herb in enhancing hematopoietic functions.
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