Beta-Asarone Attenuates Neuronal Apoptosis Induced by Beta Amyloid in Rat Hippocampus

Abstract

Neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease (AD), is associated with the loss of neuronal cells, and it has been suggested that apoptosis is a crucial pathway in neuronal loss in AD patients. Recent evidence suggests that amyloid beta peptide (Ab) induces neuronal apoptosis in the brain and in primary neuronal cultures. In this study, we investigated the impact of b-asarone against the apoptosis induced by Ab in rat hippocampus. The results showed that intrahippocampal injections of Ab (1 42) caused apoptosis in rat hippocampus. Oral administration of b-asarone (12.5, 25, or 50 mg/kg) for 28 d reverse the increase in the number of terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nickend labeling positive cells in the hippocampus tissue. Mitochondrial dysfunction is a hallmark of b-amyloid (Ab)-induced neuronal toxicity in AD. Therefore, we investigated nuclear translocation of apoptosis induction factors. Our results showed that b-asarone aŠorded a beneˆcial inhibition on both mRNA and protein expression of Bad, Bax, and cleavage of caspases 9 in rat hippocampus following intrahippocampal injections of Ab (1 42). Our further investigation revealed that ASK1, p-MKK7, and p-c-Jun were signiˆcantly decreased after b-asarone treatment, implicating that the modulation of ASK1/c-JNK-mediated intracellular signaling cascades might be involved in therapeutic eŠect of basarone against Ab toxicity. Taken together, these results suggest that b-asarone may be a potential candidate for development as a therapeutic agent for AD.

Beta-asarone Induces LoVo Colon Cancer Cell Apoptosis by Up-regulation of Caspases through a Mitochondrial Pathway in vitro and in vivo

“…For the first time we reported the growth inhibitory effect of β-asarone on LoVo cells by inducing the cells apoptosis, which might extend its potential usage. Liu et al (2010) and Zou et al (2011) have reported that beta-asarone can attenuate neuronal apoptosis by amyloid in rat hippocampus. Their results had shown that beta-asarone has the ability to attenuate the apoptosis, which is different from ours.…”

β-Asarone protects PC12 cells against OGD/R-induced injury via attenuating Beclin-1-dependent autophagy

“…It has effects on multi-target genes in mouse brain [8] . It can obviously increase the expression of c-fos in epilepsy rat brain [9] , and attenuate neuronal apoptosis induced by β-amyloid in rat hippocampus and in PC12 cells [10,11] . But it may also have side effects.…”

“…It helps to maintain cell homeostasis [1][2][3] , but excessive autophagy may also leads to autophagic neuron death and apoptosis [4][5][6] . β-asarone, one of chief constituents from Acorus Tatarinowii Schott, can easily pass through the blood brain barrier [7] , and shows various neuroprotective effects such as protecting neuron against apoptosis [8][9][10][11] . However, the effect of β-asarone on autophagy in a model of ischemic stroke in vitro is rarely reported.…”

β-Asarone Mitigates Amyloidosis and Downregulates RAGE in a Transgenic Mouse Model of Alzheimer’s Disease

“…Therefore, RAGE is believed to be an important cellular factor for the pathogenesis of AD and is served as a new target for AD therapy (Zlokovic 2008;Yan et al 2009Yan et al , 2012. b-asarone, the essential component of Acori graminei rhizoma (AGR), can easily pass through BBB (Fang et al 2012) and exert neuroprotective effects in both vivo and vitro AD models (Zou et al 2011;Liu et al 2010;Geng et al 2010). Our previous study has proven that b-asarone could reduce neuronal apoptosis and improve memory deficits in Tg AD-model mice (Wei et al 2013).…”