Esculetin improves cognitive impairments induced by transient cerebral ischaemia and reperfusion in mice via regulation of mitochondrial fragmentation and mitophagy.

Esculetin improves cognitive impairments induced by transient cerebral ischaemia and reperfusion in mice via regulation of mitochondrial fragmentation and mitophagy. Behav Brain Res. 2019 Jun 22;:112007 Authors: Xu B, Zhu L, Chu J, Ma Z, Fu Q, Wei W, Deng X, Ma S Abstract Mitochondrial dynamics regulate mitochondrial autophagy (mitophagy) and apoptosis, which are important events for the quality control of mitochondria and mitochondrial-associated diseases. Esculetin (ESC) is a natural coumarin that exhibits inspiring biological activities in a variety of animal models, but its neuroprotective effects on cerebral ischaemia have not been clearly elucidated. In this paper, we demonstrated the effects of ESC on transient cerebral ischaemia and reperfusion injury induced in a mouse model and examined the possible underlying mechanisms by investigating mitochondrial fragmentation-regulated mitochondrial autophagy and apoptosis. The experimental results showed that ESC treatment alleviated neurological defects and improved cognitive impairments in transient bilateral common carotid artery occlusion (tBCCAO)-treated mice. Further mechanism studies showed that tBCCAO induced mitochondrial oxidative stress injuries and triggered mitochondrial fragmentation, which were evident by the elevated levels of malondialdehyde and mitochondrial dynamin-related protein 1 (Drp1) and the downregulated activities of superoxide dismutase and nuclear transcr...
Source: Behavioural Brain Research - Category: Neurology Authors: Tags: Behav Brain Res Source Type: research