Abstract
Resveratrol has been reported to exhibit neuroprotective activities in vitro and in vivo. However, little is known about resveratrol tetramers of hopeaphenol, vitisin A, and vitisin B with the same molecular mass in the improvement of degenerative disorders. In this study, two 95% ethanol extracts (95EE) from stem parts of Vitis thunbergii Sieb. & Zucc. (VT-95EE) and from the root (R) parts of Vitis thunbergii var. taiwaniana (VTT-R-95EE) showed comparable acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitory activities. It was found that VT-95EE and VTT-R-95EE showed different distribution patterns of identified resveratrol and resveratrol tetramers of hopeaphenol, vitisin A, and vitisin B based on the analyses of HPLC chromatographic profiles. The hopeaphenol, vitisin A, and vitisin B, showed AChE and monoamine oxidase-B inhibitions in a dose-dependent manner, among which vitisin B and vitisin A exhibited much better activities than those of resveratrol, and had neuroprotective activities against methylglyoxal-induced SH-SY5Y cell deaths. The scopolamine-induced amnesiac ICR mice treated with VT-95EE and its ethyl acetate-partitioned fraction (VT-95EE-EA) at doses of 200 and 400 mg/kg, or vitisin A at a dose of 40 mg/kg, but not vitisin B (40 mg/kg), were shown significantly to improve the impaired learning behaviors by passive avoidance tests compared to those in the control without drug treatments (p < 0.05). Compared to mice in the control group, the brain extracts in the vitisin A-treated mice or donepezil-treated mice showed significant reductions in AChE activities and malondialdehyde levels (p < 0.05), and elevated the reduced protein expressions of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and BDNF receptor, tropomyosin receptor kinase B (TrkB). These results revealed that vitisin A was the active constituent in the VT-95EE and VTT-95EE, and the VT medicinal plant and that the endemic variety of VTT has potential in developing functional foods for an unmet medical need for neurodegenerative disorders.
Highlights
Dementia is a global pandemic and is ranked as one of top 10 causes of worldwide death in the recent ten years [1]
The developments of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitors based on cholinergic hypothesis, such as rivastigmine, donepezil, tacrine, and galantamine, are only approved as therapeutic drugs for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) medical management, and reports revealed that AChE inhibitors exhibited short-term improvement in cognition dysfunctions [4,5,6,7]
The acetylcholine levels were associated with learning and memory in the hippocampus, and the neurodegenerative disorders in general showed the failure of cholinergic circuitry in the basal forebrain, which were responsible for the cognition dysfunctions [8,9]
Summary
Dementia is a global pandemic and is ranked as one of top 10 causes of worldwide death in the recent ten years [1]. (VT) has long been whole plant uses as folk herbs in Taiwan to treat arthritis, diarrhea, hepatitis, and jaundice, which the isolated resveratrol oligomers and derivatives from root ethanol extracts have been reported to exhibit radical scavenging activities and inhibitions against platelet aggregations, including ampelopsin C, miyabenol A, (+)-ε-viniferin, (−)-viniferal, vitisinol A–G,. Isolated resveratrol tetramers of (+)-vitisin A might be the active components to reduce the weight gains in 36-day high-fat diet-induced obese mice [32]. The enriched resveratrol oligomers of extracts of VT and its endemic variety of VTT, and the active component of vitisin A were investigated under in vitro and in vivo animal experiments; their potential use may be developed as functional foods and/or lead compounds for delaying the onset of degenerative disorders
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