HEALTH NEWS

Study Title:

Vitamin K2 Lowers NF-KappaB

Study Abstract

Vitamin K is essential for blood coagulation and bone metabolism in mammals. This vitamin functions as a cofactor in the posttranslational synthesis of gamma-carboxyglutamic acid (Gla) from glutamic acid residues. However, other functions of vitamin K have been reported recently. We previously found that vitamin K suppresses the inflammatory reaction induced by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in rats and human macrophage-like THP-1 cells. In this study, we further investigated the mechanism underlying the anti-inflammatory effect of vitamin K by using cultures of LPS-treated human- and mouse-derived cells. All the vitamin K analogues analyzed in our study exhibited varied levels of anti-inflammatory activity. The isoprenyl side chain structures, except geranylgeraniol, of these analogues did not show such activity; warfarin did not interfere with this activity. The results of our study suggest that the 2-methyl-1,4-naphtoquinone ring structure contributes to express the anti-inflammatory activity, which is independent of the Gla formation activity of vitamin K. Furthermore, menaquinone-4, a form of vitamin K(2), reduced the activation of nuclear factor kappaB (NFkappaB) and inhibited the phosphorylation of IKKalpha/beta after treatment of cells with LPS. These results clearly show that the anti-inflammatory activity of vitamin K is mediated via the inactivation of the NFkappaB signaling pathway.

Study Information

Ohsaki Y, Shirakawa H, Miura A, Giriwono PE, Sato S, Ohashi A, Iribe M, Goto T, Komai M.
Vitamin K suppresses the lipopolysaccharide-induced expression of inflammatory cytokines in cultured macrophage-like cells via the inhibition of the activation of nuclear factor kappaB through the repression of IKKalpha/beta phosphorylation.
J Nutr Biochem.
2010 February
Laboratory of Nutrition, Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Tohoku University, Sendai 981-8555 Japan.