Acute lung injury (ALI), instilled by lipopolysaccharide (LPS), is a severe 
illness with excessive mortality and has no specific treatment strategy. 
Luteolin is an anti-inflammatory flavonoid and widely distributed in the plants. 
Pretreatment with luteolin inhibited LPS-induced histological changes of ALI and 
lung tissue edema. In addition, LPS-induced inflammatory responses, including 
increased vascular permeability, tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α and interleukin 
(IL)-6 production, and expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and 
cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), were also reduced by luteolin in a 
concentration-dependent manner. Furthermore, luteolin suppressed activation of 
NFκB and its upstream molecular factor, Akt. These results suggest that the 
protection mechanism of luteolin is by inhibition of NFκB activation possibly 
via Akt.