Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Anti-hyperprolactinemic effect of formula malt decoction, a Chinese herbal cocktail

Ming-xia Li¹, Hong Liu², Yan Li³, Fei Wang⁴, Pei-rong Zhang⁵, Ping Zang⁶

¹College of Nursing, Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jinan, 250355; ²Department of Business Development, Affiliated Hospital of Weifang Medical University; ³ICU, Weifang Traditional Chinese Hospital; ⁴Department of Neurosurgery; ⁵ICU; ⁶Public Health Management Office, Affiliated Hospital of Weifang Medical University, Weifang, 261031, Shandong, China.

For correspondence:- Ping Zang Email:

Received: 29 September 2014 Revised: 17 January 2015 Published: 28 February 2015

Citation: Li M, Liu H, Li Y, Wang F, Zhang P, Zang P. Anti-hyperprolactinemic effect of formula malt decoction, a Chinese herbal cocktail. Trop J Pharm Res 2015; 14(2):263-269 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v14i2.11

© 2015 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the anti-hyperprolactinemic activity of Formula Malt Decoction (FMD), a Chinese herbal mixture.

Methods: The effect of FMD on serum prolactin (PRL), estradiol (E2), progesterone (PGN), follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH) levels were investigated in hyperprolactinemic (hyperPRL) rats. The effect of FMD on PRL secretion, dopamine D2 receptor and dopamine transporters (DAT) were studied in MMQ cells derived from rat pituitary adenoma cells, GH3 cells derived from rat pituitary lactotropic tumoral cells and PC12 cells from rat pheochromocytoma, respectively.

Results: Compared with the model group, a high dose of FMD (11.6 g/kg body weight) and medium dose of FMD (5.8 g/kg body weight) reduced PRL level of hyperPRL rats effectively. In MMQ cells, treatment with 5 mg/ml FMD (p < 0.01) or 10 mg/mL FMD (p < 0.01) significantly suppressed PRL secretion and synthesis at 24 h compared with controls (p < 0.01). Consistent with D2- action, FMD did not affect PRL in rat pituitary lactotropic tumor-derived GH3 cells that lack the D2 receptor expression compared with controls, but 8 mg/mL FMD significantly increased the expression of D2 receptors (p < 0.01) and DAT (p < 0.01) in PC12 cells.

Conclusion: FMD shows anti-hyperprolactinemia activity via dopamine D2 receptor.

Keywords: Formula Malt Decoction, Hyperprolactinemia, Dopamine D2 Receptor, Prolactin, Estradiol, Progesterone follicle stimulating hormone, Luteinizing hormone