Antidepressant effect and mechanism of Gross saponins of Tribulus terrestris / 中国药理学通报

ABSTRACT

Aim Tostudytheantidepressanteffectand mechanism of Gross saponins of Tribulus terrestris. Methods Themodelofdepressionwasestablishedby unpredictable chronic mild stress(UCMS),then open filed test (OFT)and tail suspension test (TST)were used to evaluate the behavioral changes.LC-MS/MS method was employed to measure blood neurotransmit-ters.mRNA expressions of IDO,IL-10 and IL-1βwere detected by quantitative PCR method.Hippocampus protein expression was detected by Western blot.Re-sults Comparedwithcontrolgroup,modelgroup's total distance,number of standing and tail suspension fixed time increased significantly (P <0. 05 ),Neuro-transmitter level of 5-HT in the blood was significantly decreased(P<0. 05 ).mRNA expression of IDO and IL-1βwas increased in hippocampus.Protein expres-sion of IDO was significantly increased in hippocampus (P <0. 05 ).Compared with model group,the treat-ment group was significantly decreased in total distance,number of standing and tail suspension fixedtime(P<0. 05).Neurotransmitter level of 5-HT in the blood and mRNA expression of IL-10 in hippocampus were significantly increased after treatment (P <0. 05 ).mRNA and protein expression of IDO were ob-viously down-regulated in hippocampus (P <0. 05 ). Conclusions GrosssaponinsofTribulusterrestriscan obviously improve rat behavior and show antidepressanteffect,which can increase neurotransmitter level of 5-HT in the blood,down-regulate mRNA expression of IDO and IL-1β,and obviously increase protein expres-sion levels of IDO in hippocampus(P<0. 05 ).