Offering hope for people suffering from diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis and asthma, UC Davis researchers have demonstrated in studies with mice that the chemical compound sEH plays a critical role in the inflammation process.

Findings, reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, demonstrated that, after inducing inflammation in mice, if researchers inhibited sEH in the mice, blood levels of EETs would increase and inflammation would decrease. The results suggest that the sEH inhibitors might be useful in developing medicines for treating inflammatory diseases.