Anti-stress effects of rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis L.) leaf extract on intestinal goblet cells and immobility of forced-swimming test in BALB/c mice

ABSTRACT

We investigated the anti-stress effect of rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis L.) leaf extract (RLE) on restraint-stressed mice and found that RLE alleviated decreases in the number of intestinal goblet cells and amount of hepatic triglycerides. It also decreased the immobility time in the forced-swimming test and activation of microglia in the brain, suggesting that RLE has beneficial effects on stress-induced dysfunctions.

KEYWORDS:

• Rosemary
• goblet cells
• stress
• hepatic triglyceride
• forced-swimming test

Author contributions

T.K., K.N., and K.M. conceived the experiments and wrote the manuscript. T.K., K.N., M.U., H.K., S.S., and K.M. also performed the experiments and analyzed the data. All the authors have read and approved the manuscript.

Acknowledgments

Mouse breeding and RLE extraction using a Freeze Trap were performed at the Analytical Research Center for Experimental Sciences, Saga University.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported in part by JSPS KAKENHI [19K02357] (T.K. and K.M.);Japan Society for the Promotion of Science [Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research(C)/19K02357].