ACTA NEUROPHARMACOLOGICA

Acta Neuropharmacologica ›› 2018, Vol. 8 ›› Issue (5): 95-96.

Previous Articles     Next Articles

Matrine Inhibits Itching by Lowering the Activity of Calcium Channel

GENG Xiao1, SHI Hao1, YE Fan1, DU Han2, QIAN Lin-nan1, GU Le-ying1, WU Guan-yi1, ZHU Chan1, YANG Yan1, WANG Chang-ming1, ZHOU Yuan1, YU Guang 1, LIU Qin3, DONG Xin-zhong4,5, YU Lei1, TANG Zong-xiang1,   

  1. 1. School of Medicine and Life Sciences, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, China
    2. State Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology and MOE Key Laboratory of Model Animal for Disease Study, Model Animal Research Center, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210061 China
    3. Department of Anesthesiology and the Center for the Study of Itch, Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, 63110, USA
    4. The Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience, Center for Sensory Biology, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA
    5. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA
  • Online:2018-10-26 Published:2018-11-16

Abstract: Sophorae Flavescentis Radix (SFR) is a medicinal herb with many functions that are involved in anti-inflammation, antinociception, and anticancer. SFR is also used to treat a variety of itching diseases. Matrine (MT) is one of the main constituents in SFR and also has the effect of relieving itching, but the antipruritic mechanism is still unclear. Here, we investigated the effect of MT on antipruritus. In acute and chronic itch models, MT significantly inhibited the scratching behavior not only in acute itching induced by histamine (His), chloroquine (CQ) and compound 48/80 with a dose-depended manner, but also in the chronic pruritus models of Atopic dermatitis (AD) and Acetone-ether-water (AEW) in mice. Furthermore, MT can be detected in the blood after intraperitoneal injection (i.p.) and subcutaneous injection (s.c.). Finally, electrophysiological and calcium image results show that MT inhibits the excitatory synaptic transmission from dorsal root ganglion (DRG) to the dorsal horn of the spinal cord by suppressing presynaptic N-type calcium channels. Taken together, we believe that MT is a novel drug candidate in treating pruritus diseases, especially for histamine-independent and chronic pruritus, which might be attributed to inhibition of presynaptic N-type calcium channels.

Key words: Pruritus, MT, Antipruritus, N-type calcium channels