Effect of Acorus gramimeus and its active component ?-asarone on N-methyl-D-asperate receptor 1 of hippocamp neurons in epileptic young rats / 中草药

ABSTRACT

Objective To explore the effect of Acorus gramimeus and its major components ?-asarone on N-methyl-D-asperate recepter 1 (NMDAR1) mRNA levels of hippocamp neurons in epileptic animal models induced by pentylenetetrazol (PTZ). Methods PTZ 60 mg/kg was injected to the abdominal cavity of three weeks Wistar rats to prepare epileptic animal models. The animal models were randomly divided into three groups epilepsy control, A. gramimeus and ?-asarone as well as the normal control. Each group was administered through intraperitoneal injection. Both of two control groups were injected physiologic saline 1.0 mL/d, and the rest groups were injected A. gramimeus 2 350 mg/(kg?d) or ?-asarone 29 mg/(kg?d) for 7 d, respectively. All rats were treated by PTZ 60 mg/kg through intraperitoneal injection next day. After their behaviors were observed for 24 h, animals were sacrificed. The expressions of NMDAR1 mRNA in hippocamp CA1 and CA3 of all rats were detected by in situ hybridization and semiquantitative RT-PCR. Results The results of in situ hybridization showed that positive staining granules were located in the cyptoplasm of hippocamp neurons. The number of positive cells and average absorbance of A. gramimeus group or ?-asarone group was markedly less than that of epilepsy control (P