Mechanism of protective effect of pretreatment of paeoniflorin on injured cortical neurons with corticosterone / 中国中药杂志

ABSTRACT

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>Using the method of reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) to detect the related gene expression,with a view to clarify the principal mechanism that the neuroprotection of paeoniflorin (PF).</p><p><b>METHOD</b>At the seventh day, after the pretreatment of PF (0.5, 2, 10 micromol x L(-1)), with 30 min primary cultures of neurons from the cerebral cortex of 16 days old embryo rats were injured with corticosterone (200 micromol x L(-1)). After 48 h, the methods of RT-PCR was used to detect the expression of Bcl-2, Bax, Caspase-3, BDNF mRNA.</p><p><b>RESULT</b>Compared with model group, the dose of PF(2, 10 micromol x L(-1)) not only can degrade the expression of Bax, Caspase-3 mRNA, but also can raise the expression of Bcl-2, BDNF mRNA notablely (P < 0.05).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The data indicated that the principal mechanism of prophylactic neuroprotective effect of PF on corticosterone-induced neurons damages maybe due to PF can raise the expression of apoptosis-related genes Bel-2, Bax, Caspase-3 mRNA, and also ascribe to PF can raise the expression of neurotrophic factor.</p>