Antioxidative and acute antiinflammatory effects of Torreya grandis

The present study was undertaken to investigate the antioxidative and antiinflammatory activities of the ethanolic extract of seeds of Torreya grandis (EST). Exposure of human dermal fibroblasts to the extract at 50 and 250 mu g/ml showed significant protective effect against hydrogen peroxide (300 mu M). EST not only protected cell survival from H2O2-induced toxicity, but also inhibited the H2O2-induced LDH release significantly. It was also found that EST at 100 and 1000 mu g/ml showed scavenging activities of radicals and reactive oxygen species with 29.8% and 100.0% of inhibition against DPPH radical and 41.2% and 98.4% against superoxide radicals in the xanthine/xanthine oxidase system, respectively. Topically applied EST dose-dependently inhibited arachidonic acid (AA)- and 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA)-induced ear edema in mice. (c) 2006 Published by Elsevier B.V.