Skip Navigation



eCAM Advance Access published online on August 7, 2008
eCAM, doi:10.1093/ecam/nen053
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow Supplementary Data
Right arrow E-letters: Submit a response
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when E-letters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Lin, Z.
Right arrow Articles by Ruan, K.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Lin, Z.
Right arrow Articles by Ruan, K.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?


© 2008 The Author(s).
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

An Antioxidant Phytotherapy to Rescue Neuronal Oxidative Stress

Zhihong Lin1, Danni Zhu1, Yongqing Yan1, Boyang Yu2, Qiujuan Wang3, Pingniang Shen4 and Kefeng Ruan4

1Department of Chinese Medicinal Prescription, 2Department of Pharmacognosy, 3Department of Physiology, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210038 and 4National Engineering Research Center for Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai 201203, People's Republic of China

Oxidative stress is involved in the pathogenesis of ischemic neuronal injury. A Chinese herbal formula composed of Poria cocos (Chinese name: Fu Ling), Atractylodes macrocephala (Chinese name: Bai Zhu) and Angelica sinensis (Chinese names: Danggui, Dong quai, Donggui; Korean name: Danggwi) (FBD), has been proved to be beneficial in the treatment of cerebral ischemia/reperfusion (I/R).This study was carried out to evaluate the protective effect of FBD against neuronal oxidative stress in vivo and in vitro. Rat I/R were established by middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) for 1 h, followed by 24 h reperfusion. MCAO led to significant depletion in superoxide dismutase and glutathione and rise in lipid peroxidation (LPO) and nitric oxide in brain. The neurological deficit and brain infarction were also significantly elevated by MCAO as compared with sham-operated group. All the brain oxidative stress and damage were significantly attenuated by 7 days pretreatment with the aqueous extract of FBD (250 mg kg–1, p.o.). Moreover, cerebrospinal fluid sampled from FBD-pretreated rats protected PC12 cells against oxidative insult induced by 0.2 mM hydrogen peroxide, in a concentration and time-dependent manner (IC50 10.6%, ET50 1.2 h). However, aqueous extract of FBD just slightly scavenged superoxide anion radical generated in xanthine–xanthine oxidase system (IC50 2.4 mg ml–1) and hydroxyl radical generated in Fenton reaction system (IC50 3.6 mg ml–1). In conclusion, FBD was a distinct antioxidant phytotherapy to rescue neuronal oxidative stress, through blocking LPO, restoring endogenous antioxidant system, but not scavenging free radicals.

Keywords: Angelica sinensis – Atractylodes macrocephala – middle cerebral artery occlusion – Poria cocos – stroke

For reprints and all correspondence: Danni Zhu, Department of Chinese Medicinal Prescription, China Pharmaceutical University, C-09 mailbox, 1 Shennong Road, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210038, People's Republic of China. Tel: +86-25-85391042; Fax: +86-25-85391042; E-mail: danizhu{at}163.com

Received January 16, 2008; accepted July 15, 2008


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.