Neuronal apoptosis plays a crucial role in mediating cell death after ischemia reperfusion injury. Dihydromyricetin (DHM), a flavonoid, has shown to be neuro-protective by its anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-apoptotic properties. The present study investigates whether DHM treatment exerts neuro-protection by modulating apoptosis related proteins after ischemia reperfusion injury. Male Wistar rats (270 ± 20 g) were used after ethical approval. Middle cerebral artery was occluded for 90 min using a silicon coated doccol sutures followed by reperfusion for 3 days. DHM (100 mg/kg) was administered immediately and 2 h after reperfusion followed by single dose every 24 h for next 2 days. On day 3, rats were sacrificed, brain samples homogenised in RIPA buffer and expression of apoptosis related proteins like Bcl2 and Bax were checked by western blot. For apoptosis, rats were euthanized, perfusion fixed with paraformaldehyde, cryosections were stained with TUNEL assay kit. The results indicated that compared to sham group, there were significantly (p<0.001) higher number of TUNEL positive cells indicating more apoptosis in middle cerebral occlusion (MCAo) group. Treatment with DHM significantly (p<0.05) reduced the number of apoptotic cells when compared to MCAo group. The expression of Bax was also increased in MCAo group as compared to sham. DHM treatment significantly normalised the expression of Bax when compared with MCAo. MCAo induced decreased Bcl2 expression was also normalised by DHM. Our results thus showed that the neuro-protective effect of DHM in ischemia reperfusion injury may be due to normalization of apoptosis related proteins.
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