Study on the Mechanism of Puerarin on Neurons and PI3K/Akt Signaling Pathway in Neonatal Rats with Hypoxic-ischemic Encephalopathy
Fan Shaoping
Ding Wenxue
Liang Bixian
Abstract：Objective To observe the neuroprotective effect of puerarin in hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) rats model, and to investigate whether the PI3K/Akt signal pathway was involved in the neuroprotective effect of puerarin on neonate rat in HIE model and its possible mechanisms.Methods Ninety 7-day neonatal Wistar rats were randomly divided into sham operation group (n=10), HIE group (n=40) and puerarin treatment group (n=40).The last two group were further divided into 3 h,6 h,12 h and 24 h four time points, each of them had 10 rats.Rats model of HIE were established according to Rice's and Wu Wanfang's method, then HE stain was used to observe the morphological change, immunohistochemical method and western blot were used to detect the changes of PI3K/Akt pathway, including the expression level of total Akt, phosphorylated Akt(Ser473 and Thr308)in brains of rats.Results The HIE rats model had been established successfully and 90 Wistar rats were take into the results analysis.Compared with HIE group, HE result showed that the necrotic neurons in cortical layer and hippocampus were significantly reduced in puerarin treatment group.The immunohistochemical result proved that the expression of phosphorylated Akt in puerarin treatment group was apparently increased with time going by(P<0.01).Phosphorylated Akt reached its peak after 12 h in HIE group while after 24 h in puerarin treatment group, and the expression of phosphorylated Akt in puerarin treated group was higher than that in HIE group in every time point (P<0.01).There was extremely small amount expression in sham operation group.Western blot showed that the expression level of total Akt was at equal pace between three groups in every time point.Compared with HIE group,the phosphorylated Akt (Ser473 and Thr308) level was increased significantly in puerarin treatment group, what's more, with time going by, the change of expression roughly conformed to the immunohistochemical result above.Puerarin could increase the levels of phosphorylated Akt by playing role on Ser473 phosphorylation site as well as Thr308 phosphorylation site.Conclusion Puerarin has neuroprotective effect on HIE rats model by activating the PI3K/Akt signal pathway.Its mechanism may be related to the up-regulation of phosphorylated Akt (Ser473 and Thr308) expression, and increased the expression of Akt phosphorylation
Keywords：hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathypuerarinneuroprotectonneonatal rat
Publication Date：2017-01-01
Online Publishing Date：2025-08-15(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：6( 680-685 )