ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Nutr.
Sec. Food Chemistry
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnut.2025.1663800
Investigation of the Regulatory Effects of Tea Polyphenols on CYP450s in HepG2 Cells
Provisionally accepted
- School of Food and Drug, Shenzhen Polytechnic, Shenzhen, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Abstract Introduction: Tea, one of the world's three major beverages, exhibits antioxidant, antitumour, and cardiovascular benefits, primarily due to its polyphenolic components. However, the roles of tea polyphenols on the modulation of cytochrome P450 enzymes (CYP450s) are not well documented. Therefore, this study investigates the regulatory effects of tea polyphenols on CYP450s in HepG2 cells. Methods: High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was used to analyse the compositions of tea polyphenol extracts from Longjing green tea (unfermented), Tieguanyin oolong tea (semifermented) and Dianhong black tea (fully fermented). HepG2 cells were treated with these extracts and their major polyphenolic constituents (EGCG, EGC, ECG, TF, TF-3-G, and TF-3'-G), and the mRNA and protein expression levels of CYP3A4, CYP2E1, CYP2C9 and CYP1A2 were measured using real-time RT‒PCR and Western blotting. Results: Significant regulation of CYP450 mRNA and protein expression by the three tea polyphenol extracts was observed, and enzyme inhibition was more prevalent than induction, with large contributions from the major monomers, including EGCG, EGC, and ECG. These findings indicate that interactions based on metabolism might occur when tea polyphenols are combined with medications. Conclusion: This study provides evidence that tea polyphenols significantly affect CYP450 enzyme expression, offering insights into the potential interactions between tea consumption and drug metabolism.
Keywords: Tea polyphenols, CYP450s, Food‒drug interaction, mRNA, protein expression
Received: 15 Jul 2025; Accepted: 15 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 ZUO, Ren, Ren, Chen, Wang, Zhang and Sun. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Haiyan Sun, susan@szpu.edu.cn
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.