Isoliquiritigenin, a potential therapeutic agent for treatment of inflammation-associated diseases

Licorice is a medicinal herb with a 2000-year history of applications in traditional Chinese medicine. Isoliquiritigenin (ISL) is a bioactive chalcone compound isolated from licorice. It has attracted increasing attention in recent years due to its excellent anti-inflammatory activity.This study is to provide a comprehensive summary of the anti-inflammatory activity of ISL and the underlying molecular mechanisms, and discuss new insights for its potential clinical applications as an anti-inflammation agent.We examined literatures published in the past twenty years from PubMed, Research Gate, Web of Science, Google Scholar, and SciFinder, with single or combined key words of "isoliquiritigenin", "inflammation", and "anti-inflammatory".ISL elicits its anti-inflammatory activity by mediating various cellular processes. It inhibits the upstream of the nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) pathway and activates the nuclear factor erythroid related factor 2 (Nrf2) pathway. In addition, it suppresses the NOD-like receptor protein 3 (NLRP3) pathway and restrains the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway.Current studies indicate a great therapeutical potential of ISL as a drug candidate for treatment of inflammation-associated diseases. However, the pharmacokinetics, biosafety, and bioavailability of ISL remain to be further investigated.