**Md Rashedunnabi Akanda 1,2, In-Shik Kim 1, Dongchoon Ahn 1, Hyun-Jin Tae 1, Hyeon-Hwa Nam 3, Byung-Kil Choo 3, Kyunghwa Kim <sup>4</sup> and Byung-Yong Park 1,\***


Received: 23 January 2018; Accepted: 13 February 2018; Published: 14 February 2018

**Abstract:** Globally, gastric ulcer is a vital health hazard for a human. *Rabdosia inflexa* (RI) has been used in traditional medicine for inflammatory diseases. The present study aimed to investigate the protective effect and related molecular mechanism of RI using lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced inflammation in RAW 246.7 cells and HCl/EtOH-induced gastric ulcer in mice. We applied 3-(4,5-dimethyl-thiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT), nitric oxide (NO), reactive oxygen species (ROS), histopathology, malondialdehyde (MDA), quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), immunohistochemistry (IHC), and Western blot analyses to evaluate the protective role of RI. Study revealed that RI effectively attenuated LPS-promoted NO and ROS production in RAW 246.7 cells. In addition, RI mitigated gastric oxidative stress by inhibiting lipid peroxidation, elevating NO, and decreasing gastric inflammation. RI significantly halted elevated gene expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor-α (*TNF-α*), interleukin-1β (*IL-1β*), interleukin-6 (*IL-6*), inducible nitric oxide synthetase (*iNOS*), and cyclooxygenase-2 (*COX-2*) in gastric tissue. Likewise, RI markedly attenuated the mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) phosphorylation, COX-2 expression, phosphorylation and degradation of inhibitor kappa B (IκBα) and activation of nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB). Thus, experimental findings suggested that the anti-inflammatory and gastroprotective activities of RI might contribute to regulating pro-inflammatory cytokines and MAPK/NF-κB signaling pathways.

**Keywords:** *Rabdosia inflexa*; inflammation; gastric ulcer; cytokines; MAPK; NF-κB
