Memory Enhancement of Acteoside (Verbascoside) in a Senescent Mice Model Induced by a Combination of d‐gal and AlCl₃

Abstract

Acteoside, also known as verbascoside or orobanchin, is a common compound found in many important medicinal plants including the Chinese herb Cistanche deserticola Y. C. Ma, which is used for its neuroprotective and memory enhancement properties. We have investigated the effects of acteoside using a senescent mouse model induced by a combination of chronic intraperitoneal administration of d-gal (60 mg/kg/day) and oral administration AlCl3 (5 mg/kg/day) once daily for 90 days. After 60 days, acteoside (30, 60, and 120 mg/kg/day) was orally administered once daily for 30 days. The memory enhancing effects of acteoside were evaluated using the Morris water maze test. The results showed that 30-120 mg/kg/day of acteoside reduced the escape latency in finding the platform, and increased the number of crossings of the platform. A 30-120 mg/kg/day of acteoside increased significantly the expression of nerve growth factor and tropomycin receptor kinase A mRNA and protein in the hippocampus, measured using real-time RT-PCR, immunohistochemical analysis, and western blotting. These results support the use of C. deserticola for memory enhancement and indicate that the effects of acteoside are induced via promotion of nerve growth factor and tropomycin receptor kinase A expression.

Acteoside and Isoacteoside Protect Amyloid β Peptide Induced Cytotoxicity, Cognitive Deficit and Neurochemical Disturbances In Vitro and In Vivo

“…However, no dose of acteoside improved exploratory behavior. These memory-improving effects of acteoside are similar to those identified in other reports, which found that acteoside at 1.0–120 mg/kg reversed the memory impairment that was induced by scopolamine, d -galactose or d -galactose plus AlCl 3 [13,14,16,17,25]. This difference between the results obtained herein with those other reports may be related to the given route and duration, and various models.…”

“…Some reports have indicated that acteoside has cytoprotective effects against Aβ 25-35, glutamate, okadaic acid, and MPP + in vitro, and this effect may be mediated by their antioxidant and antiapoptotic activities by maintaining mitochondrial function and the activities of antioxidative enzymes, decreasing intracellular oxidative stress and Bax/Bcl-2 ratio, and inhibiting caspase-3 activity [9,10,18,35,36]. Other reports have indicated that acteoside protects Aβ 25-35-induced neuronal damage by inducting heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) and the activation of transcription factor NF-E2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) by extracellular signal–regulated kinases (ERKs) and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/protein kinase B (PI3K/Akt) signaling [18], and restored the expression of neurotrophins including nerve growth factor (NGF), neurotrophin 3 (NT-3), and tropomyosin receptor kinase A (TrkA) in a d -galactose or d -galactose plus AlCl 3 -induced mouse senescence model [15,17]. NGF and NT-3 exhibited a neuroprotective function with therapeutic potential against neurodegenerative diseases [37].…”

“…Reports have shown that acteoside can alleviate acquired learning disability in mice that is induced by scopolamine [13], and reduce cerebral injury in mice that is induced by d -galactose [14,15]. Acteoside also shortens the escape latency in the Morris water maze (MWM) and reduces the number of retention errors in the step-down test in d -galactose plus AlCl 3 -induced mouse senescence model [16,17]. Acteoside protects neuronal damage caused by Aβ 25-35 in SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cells [10,18] and inhibits the aggregation of Aβ 1-42 in vitro [19].…”

The Mechanism of Memory Enhancement of Acteoside (Verbascoside) in the Senescent Mouse Model Induced by a Combination of d‐gal and AlCl3

“…Previous studies have shown that acteoside can markedly reduce cerebral injury in mice induced by d ‐galactose (Gao et al ., ) and significantly alleviate acquired learning disability in mice induced by scopolamine (Lin et al ., ). In the Morris water maze test, acteoside (30–120 mg/kg/day) reduced the escape latency and increased the number of crossings of the platform as well as significantly increasing the expression of nerve growth factor and tropomycin receptor kinase mRNA in the hippocampus in the same d ‐galactose and AlCl 3 ‐induced mouse model of senescence (Gao et al ., ). The present study aims to further characterize the effects of acteoside in improving learning and memory in this model.…”

The Effect of Verbascoside in Neuropathic Pain Induced by Chronic Constriction Injury in Rats

“…The phenylpropanoid verbascoside (acteoside) is a glycoside isolated from several medicinal plants of different families such as Verbenaceae, Oleaceae, Buddlejaceae, Lamiaceae, and Scrophulariaceae. This compound is known to have various pharmacological effects including antiulcerogenic (Sanchez et al, 2013), antiproliferative (Lee et al, 2007), glucose tolerance improvement (Morikawa et al, 2014),and enhanced learning and memory tasks (Lee et al, 2006;Gao et al, 2015;Peng et al, 2015). Verbascoside is known as a powerful reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging and antioxidant agent (Di Giancamillo et al, 2013;Funes et al, 2009;Mosca et al, 2013).…”