Sodium Houttuyfonate, the active compound of the Houttuynia plant, is mainly used for treating purulent skin infections, respiratory tract infections, including pneumonia in elderly patients, and chronic bronchitis.
Treatment with sodium houttuyfonate results in an increase in the expression of c-Fos protein in macrophages, while the phosphorylation level of extracellular signal-related kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2) is not affected by the treatment[2].
Sodium houttuyfonate has been shown to protect against cationized bovine serum albumin (C-BSA)-induced glomerulonephritis in BALB/C mice through the suppression of the urine protein, morphological character and monocyte chemotactic protein 1 (MCP-1). In addition, sodium houttuyfonate treatment has been shown to induce a respiratory burst and to increase the concentration of free calcium in macrophages, as well as increase IL-2 within T-cells. Sodium houttuyfonate in the serum, stomach and intestine can be detected immediately by GC at 0.5 h. The concentration of sodium houttuyfonate in the stomach gradually increases from 0.5–2 h, but is drastically reduced at 4 h. Furthermore, the concentration in the serum and intestine at 1–4 h decreases in a time-dependent manner, indicating that sodium houttuyfonate can be quickly absorbed into the circulatory system and intestine and might be quickly distributed to other organs, such as trachea, lung, brain, heart and kidney[2].
[1] JUN LI, et al. Exp Ther Med. 2014, 7(6): 1639–1642. [2] Chen J, et al. Int J Mol Sci. 2014, 15(12):22978-94.