1. Academic Validation
  2. Gastric anti-ulcerative and anti-inflammatory activity of metyrosine in rats

Gastric anti-ulcerative and anti-inflammatory activity of metyrosine in rats

  • Pharmacol Rep. 2010 Jan-Feb;62(1):113-9. doi: 10.1016/s1734-1140(10)70248-6.
Abdulmecit Albayrak 1 Beyzagul Polat Elif Cadirci Ahmet Hacimuftuoglu Zekai Halici Mine Gulapoglu Fatih Albayrak Halis Suleyman
Affiliations

Affiliation

  • 1 Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Ataturk University, 25240 Erzurum, Turkey.
Abstract

In this study, the anti-inflammatory and anti-ulcerative effects of metyrosine, a selective tyrosine hydroxylase Enzyme inhibitor, were investigated in rats. For ulcer experiments, indomethacin-induced gastric ulcer tests and ethanol-induced gastric ulcer tests were used. For these experiments, rats were fasted for 24 h. Different doses of metyrosine and 25 mg/kg doses of ranitidine were administered to rats, followed by indomethacin at 25 mg/kg for the indomethacin-induced ulcer test, or 50% ethanol for the ethanol-induced test. Results have shown that at all of the doses used (50, 100 and 200 mg/kg), metyrosine had significant anti-ulcerative effects in both indomethacin and ethanol-induced ulcer tests. Metyrosine doses of 100 and 200 mg/kg (especially the 200 mg/kg dose) also inhibited carrageenan-induced paw inflammation even more effectively than indomethacin. In addition, to characterize the anti-inflammatory mechanism of metyrosine we investigated its effects on cyclooxygenase (COX) activity in inflammatory tissue (rat paw). The results showed that all doses of metyrosine significantly inhibited high COX-2 activity. The degree of COX-2 inhibition correlated with the increase in anti-inflammatory activity. In conclusion, we found that metyrosine has more anti-inflammatory effects than indomethacin and that these effects can be attributed to the selective inhibition of COX-2 Enzymes by metyrosine. We also found that adrenalin levels are reduced upon metyrosine treatment, which may be the cause of the observed gastro-protective effects of this compound.

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