Luteolin and Thiosalicylate Inhibit HGCL 2 and Thimerosal-Induced VEGF Release from Human Mast Cells

HgCl 2 is a known environmental neurotoxin, but is also used as preservative in vaccines as thimerosal containing ethyl mercury covalently linked to thiosalicylate. We recently reported that mercury chloride (HgCl 2 ) can stimulate human mast cells to release vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), which is also vasoactive and pro-inflammatory. Here we show that thimerosal induces significant VEGF release from human leukemic cultured LAD2 mast cells (at 1 μM 326±12 pg/10 6 cells and 335.5±12 pg/10 6 cells at 10 μM) compared to control cells (242±21 pg/10 6 cells, n=5, p