Protective Property of an Phryma leptostachya var. asiatica Hara Ethanol Extract against UV-B Radiation-Induced Photoaging in Human Dermal Keratinocytes

The dried roots of Phryma leptostachya var. asiatica Hara were extracted with 70% ethanol to generate the powdered extract, named PLE. In the previous work, PLE was shown to contain anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, anti-angiogenic and skin whitening activities. In this continuing work, its skin anti-photoaging activity was evaluated in human dermal keratinocyte HaCaT cells. First of all, PLE was able to attenuate the reactive oxygen species (ROS) elevation in UV-B-irradiated HaCaT cells. PLE exhibited suppressive activities on the matrix metaaloproteinase-2 (MMP-2) gelatinolytic activity enhanced by UV-B irradiation in conditioned medium. It could also suppress UV-B-induced MMP-2 protein levels in both conditioned medium and cellular lysate. PLE showed an attenuating tendency on UV-B-induced MMP-9 proteins in both conditioned medium and cellular lysate. The findings, obtained in the current work, assess novel skin anti-photoaging activity of PLE.