Escin, as an internally applied
anti-inflammatory agent, has been widely used in the treatment of
inflammation and
edema resulting from
trauma or operation in the clinic. However, the effect of its external use on cutaneous
inflammation and
edema remains unexplored. In the present study, the anti-inflammatory and anti-edematous effects of external use of
escin were studied in
carrageenan-induced paw
edema and
histamine-induced capillary permeability in rats,
paraxylene-induced ear swelling in mice, and cotton pellet-induced
granuloma in rats. Effects of external use of
escin gel on
prostaglandin E2 (
PGE2),
tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), and interleukin-1β (IL-1β) were determined by ELISA. The anti-inflammatory mechanism was explored by detecting the expression of
glucocorticoid receptor (GR) with Western blotting and Real-time PCR analyses, with further exploration of nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB),
p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (P38MAPK) and
activator protein-1 (AP-1) expressions. We demonstrated that external use of
escin showed significant anti-inflammatory effects on acute and chronic
inflammation in different animal models and its anti-inflammatory effects might be related to down-regulation of
PGE2, TNF-α, and IL-1β. The results also showed that
escin exerted its anti-inflammatory effects by promoting the expression of GR, with the possible mechanism being inhibition of the expressions of GR-related signaling molecules such as NF-κB and
AP-1.