Letter to the editor

Recent studies on ursolic acid and its biological and pharmacological activity

Sook Young Lee1, Yong Joo Kim2, Sun Ok Chung2, Sang Un Park3[*]

1Regional Innovation Center for Dental Science and Engineering, Chosun University, 309 Pilmun-daero, Dong-gu, Gwangju, 501-759, Korea

2Department of Biosystems Machinery Engineering, Chungnam National University, 99 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, 305-764, Korea

3Department of Crop Science, Chungnam National University, 99 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, 305-764, Korea

EXCLI J 2016;15:Doc221

 

Dear Editor,

Ursolic acid (3-beta-3-hydroxy-urs-12-ene-28-oic-acid; UA) is a lipophilic pentacyclic triterpenoid; it was found to be present in the epicuticular waxes of apples in 1920. It is widely found naturally in the peels of fruits, as well as in many herbs and spices such as lavender, oregano, thyme, rosemary, and thyme (Woźniak et al., 2015[48]). UA has been confirmed to have several biological and pharmacological effects, such as anti-inflammatory (Baricevic et al., 2001[6]), antitumor (Baglin et al., 2003[3]), antiplatelet aggregation (Babalola et al., 2013[1]), anti-HIV (Kashiwada et al., 2000[25]), and anti-Mycobacterium tuberculosis effects (Cantrell et al., 2001[7]).

Its many pharmaceutical and biological properties make it an interesting material for application in the pharmaceutical, food, and cosmetics industries. Herein, we review the most recent studies on UA and its biological and pharmacological activities (Table 1(Tab. 1)). (References in Table 1: Meng et al., 2015[37]; He et al., 2015[17]; Wang et al., 2015[46]; Yang et al., 2015[51]; Chu et al., 2015[11]; Jeon et al., 2015[21]; Cho et al., 2015[10]; Yuliang et al., 2015[54]; Bakhtiari et al., 2015[4]; Prissadova et al., 2015[41]; Yuan et al., 2015[53]; Li et al., 2015[30]; Xu et al., 2015[50]; Xiang et al., 2015[49]; Jiang et al., 2015[23]; Gao et al., 2015[15]; Kim and Moon, 2015[26]; Yie et al., 2015[52]; Kim et al., 2015[28]; Chen et al., 2015[9]; Ma et al., 2015[36]; Hu et al., 2015[19]; Jia et al., 2015[22]; Podder et al., 2015[40]; Zhang et al., 2014[55]; Zou et al., 2014[57]; Weng et al., 2014[47]; Kalani et al., 2014[24]; Hwang et al., 2014[20]; Bang et al., 2014[5]; He et al., 2014[18]; Castro et al., 2015[8]; Liu et al., 2013[34]; Sundaresan et al., 2014[44]; Baek et al., 2014[2]; Lee et al., 2014[29]; Saini et al., 2014[42]; Chun et al., 2014[12]; Ou et al., 2014[39]; Li et al., 2014[31]; Ma et al., 2014[35]; Qu et al., 2013; Han et al., 2014[16]; Kim et al., 2014[27]; Deng et al., 2014[13]; Ling et al., 2013[33]; do Nascimento et al., 2014[14]; Wang et al., 2013[45]; Nam and Kim et al., 2013[38]; Lin et al., 2013[32]; Song et al., 2014[43]; Zhou et al., 2013[56])

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Research Center Support Program, Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

 

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29. Lee J, Lee HI, Seo KI, Cho HW, Kim MJ, Park EM, et al. Effects of ursolic acid on glucose metabolism, the polyol pathway and dyslipidemia in non-obese type 2 diabetic mice. Indian J Exp Biol. 2014;52:683-91.
30. Li JS, Wang WJ, Sun Y, Zhang YH, Zheng L. Ursolic acid inhibits the development of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease by attenuating endoplasmic reticulum stress. Food Funct. 2015;6:1643-51.
31. Li Y, Lu X, Qi H, Li X, Xiao X, Gao J. Ursolic acid induces apoptosis through mitochondrial intrinsic pathway and suppression of ERK1/2 MAPK in HeLa cells. J Pharmacol Sci. 2014;125:202-10.
32. Lin J, Chen Y, Wei L, Hong Z, Sferra TJ, Peng J. Ursolic acid inhibits colorectal cancer angiogenesis through suppression of multiple signaling pathways. Int J Oncol. 2013;43:1666-74.
33. Ling C, Jinping L, Xia L, Renyong Y. Ursolic acid provides kidney protection in diabetic rats. Curr Ther Res Clin Exp. 2013;75:59-63.
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47. Weng H, Tan ZJ, Hu YP, Shu YJ, Bao RF, Jiang L, et al. Ursolic acid induces cell cycle arrest and apoptosis of gallbladder carcinoma cells. Cancer Cell Int. 2014;14:96.
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50. Xu H, Zhang M, Li XL, Li H, Yue LT, Zhang XX, et al. Low and high doses of ursolic acid ameliorate experimental autoimmune myasthenia gravis through different pathways. J Neuroimmunol. 2015;281:61-7.
51. Yang Y, Jiang M, Hu J, Lv X, Yu L, Qian X, et al. Enhancement of radiation effects by ursolic acid in BGC-823 human adenocarcinoma gastric cancer cell line. PLoS One. 2015;10:e0133169.
52. Yie Y, Zhao S, Tang Q, Zheng F, Wu J, Yang L, et al. Ursolic acid inhibited growth of hepatocellular carcinoma HepG2 cells through AMPKα-mediated reduction of DNA methyltransferase 1. Mol Cell Biochem. 2015;402:63-74.
53. Yuan Y, Gao Y, Song G, Lin S. Ursolic acid and oleanolic acid from Eriobotrya fragrans inhibited the viability of A549 cells. Nat Prod Commun. 2015;10:239-42.
54. Yuliang W, Zejian W, Hanlin S, Ming Y, Kexuan T. The hypolipidemic effect of artesunate and ursolic acid in rats. Pak J Pharm Sci. 2015;28:871-4.
55. Zhang T, Su J, Guo B, Zhu T, Wang K, Li X. Ursolic acid alleviates early brain injury after experimental subarachnoid hemorrhage by suppressing TLR4-mediated inflammatory pathway. Int Immunopharmacol. 2014;23:585-91.
56. Zhou L, Ding Y, Chen W, Zhang P, Chen Y, Lv X. The in vitro study of ursolic acid and oleanolic acid inhibiting cariogenic microorganisms as well as biofilm. Oral Dis. 2013;19:494-500.
57. Zou Y, Lee Y, Huh J, Park JW. Synergistic effect of xylitol and ursolic acid combination on oral biofilms. Restor Dent Endod. 2014;39:288-95.
 
 
 

Table 1: Recent studies on ursolic acid and its biological and pharmacological activities

[*] Corresponding Author:

Sang Un Park, Department of Crop Science, Chungnam National University, 99 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, 305-764, Korea; Phone: +82-42-822-2631, Fax: +82-42-822-2631, eMail: supark@cnu.ac.kr