What is apigenin? What foods is it found in?
Apigenin is a flavonoid found in a variety of plants in the form of yellow pigment. It is found mainly in chamomile, verbena, and especially celery. Chamomile is native to the United Kingdom and is grown in Germany, France and Morocco. Chamomile can help patients sleep, relieve inflammation and pain symptoms, and relieve insomnia caused by nervous skin pruritus. It is also cultivated in large quantities in China for medicine and tea making.
1.Long-term protective effect of apigenin on inflammation
LPS is a component of the cell wall of Gram-negative bacteria that promotes inflammation and the production of inflammatory mediators. In experiments, apigenin enabled mice with LPS-induced inflammation to survive long after the acute inflammatory phase. It suggests that apigenin has a long-term protective effect on inflammation.
2.Apigenin has the ability to regulate cardiac homeostasis during inflammation
Continuous echocardiographic monitoring of mice with LPS-induced inflammation showed that apigenin helped regulate cardiac contractile function in mice with inflammation. In addition, apigenin significantly decreased mitochondrial complex I activity during LPS stimulation, suggesting that apigenin could prevent cardiac dysfunction and restore normal mitochondrial metabolic function.
The role of apigenin in cancer prevention
In the 1980s, Birt et al. first demonstrated the effective anti-mutagenesis and anti-carcinogenic properties of apigenin. Since then, the potential value of apigenin in cancer prevention and treatment has been further supported by extensive studies of various cancer animal models. For example, apigenin has been shown to effectively inhibit the progression of prostate cancer, prevent oral cancer, and prevent colon cancer and UVB-induced skin inflammation in mice.
Antitumor mechanism of apigenin:
- Regulation of tumor cell cycle
One of the most basic biological characteristics of tumor is uncontrolled proliferation, the biological basis of which is the disorder of cell cycle regulation. - Regulation of tumor cell cycle
One of the most basic biological characteristics of tumor is uncontrolled proliferation, the biological basis of which is the disorder of cell cycle regulation. - inhibit invasion and metastasis
Invasion and metastasis of tumor cells is a process in which tumor cells escape from the primary growth site and continue to proliferate and grow in tissues and organs far away from the primary site in the body through various ways of transport.
