Research Article Carbon Monoxide Attenuates Dextran Sulfate Sodium-Induced Colitis via Inhibition of GSK-3

Copyright © 2013 Md. Jamal Uddin et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Endogenous carbon monoxide (CO) is produced by heme oxygenase-1 (HO)-1 which mediates the degradation of heme into CO, iron, and biliverdin. Also, CO ameliorates the human inflammatory bowel diseases and ulcerative colitis. However, the mechanism for the effect of CO on the inflammatory bowel disease has not yet been known. In this study, we showed that CO significantly increases survival percentage, body weight, colon length as well as histologic parameters in DSS-treated mice. In addition, CO inhalation significantly decreased DSS induced pro-inflammatory cytokines by inhibition of GSK-