Key words Z-ligustilide; heat-shock protein 70; mitogen-activated protein kinase; oxygen-glucose deprivation-reoxygenation; heat-shock factor 1The World Health Organization (WHO) Global Infobase reports that stroke has become the second leading cause of mortality in the world, causing around 6000000 deaths annually.
1)However, there are currently relatively few treatment options available to minimize damage or death following a stroke. Protein aggregates containing ubiquitinated proteins are commonly present in neurodegenerative disorders and have been considered to cause neuronal degeneration. The previous study also showed that transient cerebral ischemia caused severe protein aggregation in hippocampal CA1 neurons which appeared at 4 h and progressively accumulated at 24 and 48 h.
2)Therefore, control of protein aggregation may represent an alternative treatment to neurological damage caused by ischemic stroke.Heat shock proteins (HSPs) are a group of phylogenetically and ubiquitous cytoprotective proteins found in all prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, many of which are chaperone molecules that facilitate protein folding, trafficking and also prevent their aggregation and degradation.3) Heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) is a major inducible heat shock protein that basically functions as a molecular chaperone and plays an important role in preventing protein aggregation, degrading unstable and misfolded proteins and transporting proteins between cellular compartments.4) It's reported that over-expression of HSP70 via transgenes and viruses or systemic administration of HSP70 fusion proteins that allow it to cross the blood brain barrier protects the brain against ischemia, 5,6) suggesting that increasing HSP70 level or activity may be a potential therapeutic target for pharmacological intervention of ischemic diseases.Ligusticum chuanxiong is a commonly used Chinese herbal medicine with its empiric treatment of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases.7) Z-Ligustilide as the major bioactive phthalide compound of Rhizoma chuanxiong was previously suggested for the prevention and treatment of ischemic stroke. 8,9) Our and others' studies showed that Z-ligustilide could protect ischemic injury both in vitro and in vivo via the induction of direct and indirect antioxidant response. 8,10,11) However, its effect on the heat shock response, a highly conserved and fundamental cytoprotective mechanism, under ischemic stress remains unexplored. Along this line, we characterized the effect of Z-ligustilide on HSP70 and explored the potential role of HSP70 in the protection of Z-ligustilide against oxygen-glucose deprivation and reoxygenation (OGDReoxy) induced injury in this study.