Abstract
Colitis as well as Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) is facilitated by imbalanced Mucosal immune response that is manifested by excessive secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines. A new direction in the treatment suggests recent evidence of epigenetic modifications as the key regulators of this inflammatory cascade as a new direction of treatment. This experiment sought to examine the prophylactic action and the epigenetic mechanism of Ferula assa-foetida essential oil (FAE) on a murine model of an epigenetic Dextran Sulfate Sodium (DSS)-induced colitis. Pre-treatment, Male C57BL/6 mice were pre-treated with FAE (50mg/kg) 14 days before DSS induction. Clinical parameters such as DAI and the colon length, were maintained significantly in FAE-treated group, as compared to the DSS control. A deep inhibition of the transcription of pro-inflammatory cytokine (Il6, Il17a, and Tnfa) was detected using molecular analysis. More importantly, specific epigenetic data collection through Methylation-Specific PCR and Chromatin Immunoprecipitation (ChIP-qPCR) revealed that hypomethylation of Il6 and Il17a promoters inhibited by prophylactic administration of FAE. Moreover, FAE retained H3K27me3 repressive histone mark and suppressed the active transcription mark H3K27ac of these loci. These results reveal good evidence that Ferula assa-foetida essential oil is a powerful epigenetic modulator, which inactivates transcription of inflammatory cytokines, and as a consequence provides a powerful prophylactic approach in the context of colitis-related mucosal injury.