RESUMO
The current study was performed to investigate the effect of baicalin (BC) on spinal cord injury (SCI) in rat. BC (10, 30 and 100mg/kg, i.p., respectively) was administered to rats immediately and every 24h following SCI. The BC therapy (100mg/kg) dramatically decreased (1) the water content of spinal cord tissue (by dry-wet weight method), (2) the permeability of blood-spinal cord barrier (measured by Evans blue), (3) oxidant stress (malondialdehyde values and glutathione levels evaluation), (4) proinflammatory cytokines expression (tumor necrosis factor-α and NF-κB) (5) and apoptosis (measured by Bax, Bcl-2 and Caspase-3 expression). And the treatment with BC also significantly improved the recovery of limb function (evaluated by motor recovery score). Taken together, our results clearly indicate that BC possesses potent anti-inflammatory and anti-apoptotic properties, attenuates the SCI and is a new promising therapeutic agent for human SCI in the future.
