Monocytes serve an important role in systemic inflammation. High mobility group box-1 protein (HMGB1) promotes recruitment and suppresses apoptosis in monocytes through the receptor for advanced glycation end products/ nuclear factor (NF)-κB and toll-like receptor 4/mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK)/extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) signaling pathways. Glycyrrhizin (GL), an effective component of licorice, weakens the proinflammatory effect of HMGB1. The present study

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... d the effect of GL on the migration and apoptosis of monocytes associated with HMGB1 signaling. THP-1 cells were used to evaluate the behavior of monocytes in response to GL treatment, and the downstream pathways were investigated. GL suppressed HMGB1-induced monocyte migration and increased HMGB1-inhibited monocyte apoptosis. GL inhibited the activation of the NF-κB and MAPK/ERK signaling pathways induced by HMGB1 and decreased the expression of monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) and myeloid cell leukemia 1 (Mcl-1). Taken together, the results indicated that GL may suppress the migration of monocytes and induce apoptosis to reduce systemic inflammation by blocking downstream NF-κB/MCP-1 and MAPK/ERK/Mcl-1 signaling pathways.