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eCAM Advance Access published online on July 7, 2009
eCAM, doi:10.1093/ecam/nep073
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© 2009 The Author(s).
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Maternal Baicalin Treatment Increases Fetal Lung Surfactant Phospholipids in Rats

Chung-Ming Chen1, Leng-Fang Wang2 and Kur-Ta Cheng2

1Department of Pediatrics and 2Department of Biochemistry, College of Medicine, Taipei Medical University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan

Baicalin is a flavonoid compound purified from the medicinal plant Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi and has been reported to stimulate surfactant protein (SP)-A gene expression in human lung epithelial cell lines (H441). The aims of this study were to determine whether maternal baicalin treatment could increase lung surfactant production and induce lung maturation in fetal rats. This study was performed with timed pregnant Sprague–Dawley rats. One-day baicalin group mothers were injected intraperitoneally with baicalin (5 mg/kg/day) on Day 18 of gestation. Two-day baicalin group mothers were injected intraperitoneally with baicalin (5 mg/kg/day) on Days 17 and 18 of gestation. Control group mothers were injected with vehicle alone on Day 18 of gestation. On Day 19 of gestation, fetuses were delivered by cesarean section. Maternal treatment with 2-day baicalin significantly increased saturated phospholipid when compared with control group and total phospholipid in fetal lung tissue when compared with control and 1-day baicalin groups. Antenatal treatment with 2-day baicalin significantly increased maternal growth hormone when compared with control group. Fetal lung SP-A mRNA expression and maternal serum corticosterone levels were comparable among the three experimental groups. Maternal baicalin treatment increases pulmonary surfactant phospholipids of fetal rat lungs and the improvement was associated with increased maternal serum growth hormone. These results suggest that antenatal baicalin treatment might accelerate fetal rat lung maturation.

Keywords: corticosterone – growth hormone – surfactant protein

For reprints and all correspondence: Chung-Ming Chen, Department of Pediatrics, Taipei Medical University Hospital, 252, Wu-Hsing Street, Taipei 110, Taiwan. Tel: +886-2-27372181 ext.: 3715; Fax: +886-2-27360399; E-mail: cmchen{at}tmu.edu.tw

Received December 30, 2008; accepted May 26, 2009


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