Abstract. Microglial cells play a critical role in mediating central nervous system inflammatory processes. Activated microglial cells induced by proinflammatory factor, such as lipopolysaccharide (LPS), release many kinds of neurotoxic cytokines including reactive oxygen species (ROS) which contributes to the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases. Puerarin, extracted from kudzu root, possesses the characteristic of neuroprotection, antioxidation and anticancer. In the present study, we observed that LPS induced over-production of nitric oxide (NO) and increased the level of intracellular ROS in N9 microglial cells, but it was inhibited by puerarin. Furthermore, treatment with puerarin on N9 cells suppressed the over-expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) induced by LPS which is implicated in intracellular O-linked β-N-acetylglucosamine (O-GlcNAc) level, phosphorylation of mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) and nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) signaling pathway. We also observed that the enhanced phosphorylation of p38, JNK and ERK1/2 in N9 cells induced by LPS were inhibited by puerarin, otherwise the down-regulation of O-GlcNAcylation level of protein in N9 cell induced by LPS was up-regulated by pretreatment with puerarin. These results indicate that puerarin effectively inhibits microglia activation induced by LPS through inhibiting expression of iNOS, production of NO and ROS which was mediated via regulating O-GlcNAcylation, phosphorylation of MAPK and NF-κB translocation.
IntroductionMicroglial cells, macrophage-like cells in the central nervous system, participate in CNS immune response through releasing a variety of factors, including trophic factors and chemokines, to promote neuroprotection (1). Whereas under chronic inflammatory environment, excessive activation of microglia cells secrete cytotoxic substances and neurotoxic cytokines, such as reactive oxygen species (ROS) and nitric oxide (NO) which contribute to the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases (2). Lipopolysaccharide (LPS), which consist in outer membrane of gram-negative bacteria as potent pro-inflammatory agents, induce microglial cell inflammatory injury through releasing proinflammatory mediators such as NO generated by inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) (3,4). NO is considered as a main risk factor of progressive damage in neurodegenerative diseases (5,6). Microglia cell inflammatory response to LPS is involved in speedy regulation of many signal transduction molecules. The regulation of a signal pathway, such as mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) and nuclear factor κB (NF-κB), is implicated in major molecular mechanisms of LPS-induced NO and ROS production in microglial cells (4,(6)(7)(8).O-Linked O-GlcNAcylation of protein, a single monosaccharide N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) attached to the hydroxyl groups of specific serine or threonine residues, is an important post-translational modification on nuclear and cytoplasmic proteins (9,10). More than 500 proteins have been identified to be O-GlcNAcylated...