Abstract
Pycnogenol, the French maritime pine bark extract, has been popular recently for its various health effects including memory enhancement. Therefore, we aimed to determine neuroprotective effect of the acetone, ethyl acetate, and ethanol extracts and essential oils of the shoots and needles of P. brutia Ten., P. halepensis M.Bieb.,P. nigra Link, P. pinea L., and P. sylvestris L., which are the Pinus species growing in Turkey, and pycnogenol by in vitro experiments using enzyme inhibition and antioxidant assays. Inhibitory activity of the extracts, essential oils, and pycnogenol was assessed against acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and butyrylcholinesterase (BChE), connected to Alzheimer's disease. Since neurodegeneration is associated with oxidative damage caused by free radicals and metal accumulation, antioxidant activity of the extracts, essential oils, and pycnogenol was measured using the methods; 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and N,N-dimethyl-pphenylendiamine (DMPD) radical scavenging activity as well as ferric ion-chelation capacity and ferric-reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) tests. Chemical compositions of the essential oils were analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Accordingly, the best AChE inhibition was caused by the shoot essential oil of P. halepensis (83.91±3.95%), while the needle ethanol extract displayed a high profile of BChE inhibition (82.47±5.57%) at 200μg/mL. AChE and BChE inhibitions by pycnogenol were 63.33±0.22% and 83.67±0.22%, respectively. The extracts and essential oils exerted moderate activity in antioxidant tests. However, many of them displayed similar or greater activity ferric ion-chelation capacity (26.49±4.47% –67.77±3.33%) than that of pycnogenol (29.14±2.00%). Our findings revealed that the Turkish pine species and pycnogenol possess neuroprotective effects by the in vitromethods applied herein.
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