Although chitooligosaccharides (COS) improve the drawbacks of chitosan, their biological activities in medical applications have not been highly appreciated. The main approach is to synthesise the COS derivatives in order to improve the biological properties of the COS. In this study, ferulic acid (FA) grafted onto COS (FA-COS) were synthesised and their mechanism of anti-inflammatory activity was investigated in the murine macrophage cells. The synthesis conditions of FA-COS were optimised and confirmed that the FA was successfully conjugated onto COS with the grafting effect of 15-34%. FA-COS exhibited anti-inflammatory activities via suppressing of nitric oxide formation, reducing iNOS expression at transcription and translation levels, down-regulation of TNF-α, IL-6 and IL-1 β genes; NF-κB and MAPKs signalling pathways. These results show anti-inflammatory molecular mechanism of FA-COS that exhibit enormous potential for prevention of inflammatory diseases.
Keywords: Anti-inflammation; chitooligosaccharides; ferulic acid grafted onto chitooligosaccharides (FA-COS); nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) and mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK).