The effects of hyperbaric oxygen preconditioning on the mitochondrial apoptosis of spinal cord neurons / 中华物理医学与康复杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To study the effects of hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) preconditioning (PC) on motor function and mitochondrial apoptosis after spinal cord injury (SCI) in rats.Methods Thirty-six healthy,male Wistar rats were randomly divided into 3 groups (each n =12)a control (CON) group,an SCI model group and an HBO-PC group.The SCI group and the HBO-PC group after 7 sessions of HBO-PC treatment were subjected to SCI modeling using Allen's method.The CON group was not given any special treatment.Two weeks after the modeling,Basso,Beattie,and Bresnahan BBB scale was used to rate the rats' locomotor function,and the T8 segment of the rats' spinal cords was removed.After extracting total RNA from the spinal cord tissue,real-time quantitative PCR was used to detect the mRNA expression levels ofcaspase-3,cytochrome C (CYC),Bak,Bax,Bcl-x and Bcl-2 in the spinal cord tissue.Results Two weeks after modeling,compared with the CON group,the average BBB locomotion score of the SCI model group had decreased.In contrast,caspase-3,CYC,Bak and Bax mRNA expressions had increased significantly.Compared with the CON group,the average BBB locomotion score of the HBO-PC group had decreased,caspase-3 expression had increased,and Bax mRNA expression had decreased,but the differences in the changes between the two groups were not statistically significant.Bak mRNA expression increased and CYC expression decreased,and the difference between the two groups was statistically significant.Compared with the SCI model group,the average BBB locomotion score of the HBO-PC group increased while caspase-3,CYC,Bak and Bax mRNA expressions decreased,but none of these differences between the two groups was statistically significant.Bak mRNA expression increased and CYC mRNA expression decreased,and those differences between the two groups were statistically significant.Bcl-x and Bcl-2 mRNA expression in the CON,HBO-PC and SCI model groups were significantly different.Conclusion HBO-PC can reduce the loss of motor function after SCI,at least in rats.The mechanism may be related to reducing neuron mitochondrial apoptosis.