• Kyung-Hwa Jung, Kyoung-Keun Haam, Soojin Park, Youngeun Kim, Seung Ryel Lee, Geunhyeog Lee, Miran Kim, Moochang Hong, Minkyu Shin, Sungki Jung, and Hyunsu Bae.
• Department of Physiology, College of Korean Medicine, Kyung Hee University, #1 Hoekidong, Dongdaemoonku, Seoul 130-701, Republic of Korea. hbae@khu.ac.kr.
• Bmc Complem Altern M. 2013 Sep 5; 13: 219.

BackgroundIn this study, we evaluated the anti-inflammatory effect of PM014 on cigarette smoke induced lung disease in the murine animal model of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).MethodsMice were exposed to cigarette smoke (CS) for 2 weeks to induce COPD-like lung inflammation. Two hours prior to cigarette smoke exposure, the treatment group was administered PM014 via an oral injection. To investigate the effects of PM014, we assessed PM014 functions in vivo, including immune cell infiltration, cytokine profiles in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid and histopathological changes in the lung. The efficacy of PM014 was compared with that of the recently developed anti-COPD drug, roflumilast.ResultsPM014 substantially inhibited immune cell infiltration (neutrophils, macrophages, and lymphocytes) into the airway. In addition, IL-6, TNF-α and MCP-1 were decreased in the BAL fluid of PM014-treated mice compared to cigarette smoke stimulated mice. These changes were more prominent than roflumilast treated mice. The expression of PAS-positive cells in the bronchial layer was also significantly reduced in both PM014 and roflumilast treated mice.ConclusionsThese data suggest that PM014 exerts strong therapeutic effects against CS induced, COPD-like lung inflammation. Therefore, this herbal medicine may represent a novel therapeutic agent for lung inflammation in general, as well as a specific agent for COPD treatment.

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