ABSTRACT
Objective:To investigate the effect of asiatic acid (AA) on the differentiated human neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y cells cytotoxic-induced by cholesterol.Methods:Human neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y cells were either exposed to different concentrations of AA or treated with different doses of cholesterol to reveal their responding viability by MTT assay.The selective 1 μmol/L concentration of AA was then used to test for either the protective or the recovery effects on the cells treated with 250 μmol/L concentration of cholesterol.Results:AA has a propensity to directly increase the viability of differentiated human neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y cells.Cholesterol has significant cytotoxic effect on those cells in a concentration-dependent manner.AA has the ability to slightly recover the viability of the differentiated culture cytotoxic-induccd by cholesterol but could not protect those cells from cytotoxic-induced by cholesterol.Conclusions:High concentrations of cholesterol were observed to be harmful to the neurons and AA had a slight effect of reducing neuronal death caused by cholesterol.