The progression of
Parkinson's disease (PD) is often accompanied by the loss of substantia nigra dopaminergic neurons, mitophagy damage, learning, and memory impairment.
Idebenone is a therapeutic
drug that targets the mitochondria of
neurodegenerative diseases, but its role in
Parkinson's disease and its pathological mechanism are still unclear. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether
idebenone could improve behavioral disorders, especially motor, learning, and
memory disorders, in mouse PD models and to explore its molecular mechanism. In the present study, C57BL-6 mice underwent
intraperitoneal injection of
MPTP (30 mg/kg) once a day for five consecutive days. Then, a 200 mg/kg dose was given as a single daily gavage of
idebenone dissolved in water for 21 days after the successful establishment of the subacute
MPTP model. Motor, learning, and memory were measured by a water maze and a rotarod test. Our results showed that
idebenone could reduce
MPTP-induced dopaminergic neuron damage and improve
movement disorders, memory, and learning ability, which may be associated with upregulating mitochondrial autophagy-related outer
membrane proteins VDAC1 and BNIP3 and activating the Parkin/PINK1 mitochondrial autophagy pathway. To confirm whether
idebenone promotes the smooth progression of autophagy, we used eGFP-mCherry-LC3 mice to construct a subacute model of
Parkinson's disease and found that
idebenone can increase autophagy in dopaminergic neurons in
Parkinson's disease. In summary, our results confirm that
idebenone can regulate the expression of the mitochondrial outer
membrane proteins VDAC1 and BNIP3, activate Parkin/PINK1 mitophagy, promote the degradation of damaged mitochondria, reduce dopaminergic neuron damage, and improve behavioral disorders in
Parkinson's disease mice.