Effects of Gardenia jasminoides Ellis ethanol extract and its constituents on anti-gastritis and anti-gastric cancer cells

Gardenia jasminoides Ellis (G. jasminoides) has been used in traditional medicine for the treatment of inflammation, jaundice, headache, fever and hypertension. Its pharmacological actions such as protective activity against oxidative damage, cytotoxic effect, anti-inflammatory activity and fibrolytic activity have already been reported. In this study, we investigated whether the ethanol-extract and single compounds from G. jasminoides have a potential anti-gastric diseases activity, such as gastritis and gastric cancer. Firstly the ethanol-extract had free radical scavenging activity (IC₅₀=34.56µM), and chlorogenic acid and rutin showed a significant scavenging activity (approximately IC₅₀=9.55 and 8.25µM, respectively). Ursolic acid and rutin (more than 50µM) had anti-bacterial activity for Helicobacter pylori. Especially ursolic acid had significant cytotoxicity to the gastric cancer cell lines SUN638 and AGS cells (IC₅₀=47.42 and 36.27µM, respectively). In acid-neutralizing property, ursolic acid and crocin showed a little inhibition of NaOH consumption amount for neutralizing the acid. However, genipin inhibited approximately 97.1% of HCl-ethanol induced gastric lesion in rats as compared to control. We propose that ursolic acid, genipin, and crocin among the other constituents of G. jasminoides ethanol-extract may play the potential role for anti-gastric diseases and these findings might clarify scientifically the usage of G. jasminoides as a traditional pharmaceutical.

Acknowledgements: This work was supported by grant of Korea Food and Drug Administration (Studies on the Identification of Efficacy of Biologically Active Components from Oriental Herbal Medicines).