Abstract
Sei-hai-to (TJ-90, Qing Fei Tang), a Chinese traditional medicine, increases ciliary beat frequency (CBF) and ciliary bend angle (CBA) mediated via cAMP (3',5'-cyclic adenosine monophosphate) accumulation modulated by Ca(2+)-activated phosphodiesterase 1 (PDE1A). A high concentration of TJ-90 (≥40 μg/mL) induced two types of CBF increases, a transient increase (an initial increase, followed by a decrease) and a sustained increase without any decline, while it only sustained the CBA increase. Upon inhibiting increases in intracellular Ca(2+) concentration ([Ca(2+)](i)) by 10 μM BAPTA-AM (Ca(2+)-chelator, 1,2-Bis(2-aminophenoxy)ethane-N,N,N',N'-tetraacetic acid tetrakis(acetoxymethyl ester) or Ca(2+)/calmodulin-dependent PDE1 by 8MmIBMX (a selective PDE1 inhibitor), TJ-90 (400 μg/mL) induced only the sustained CBF increase without any transient CBF increase. The two types of the CBF increase (the transient increase and the sustained increase) induced by TJ-90 (≥40 μg/mL) were mimicked by the stimulation with both procaterol (100 pM) and ionomycin (500 nM). Thus, TJ-90 stimulates small increases in the intracellular cAMP concentration ([cAMP](i)) and [Ca(2+)](i) in airway ciliary cells of mice. These small increases in [cAMP](i) and [Ca(2+)](i) cause inducing a transient CBF increase or a sustained CBF increase in an airway ciliary cells, depending on the dominant signal, Ca(2+)-signal, or cAMP-signal.