A Novel Pharmacological Protective Role for Safranal in an Animal Model of Huntington's Disease.

Abstract

Huntington's disease (HD) is a progressive, neurodegenerative and inherited disease and recent years have witnessed the understanding of the cellular and molecular mechanisms related to HD. Safranal, an organic compound isolated from saffron, has been reported to have anti-apoptotic, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activity and has studied in chronic and neurodegenerative disease. Therefore, this study was aimed to investigate the effect of safranal on 3-NP induced locomotor activity and biochemical alterations in rats. To this aim, 40 male Wistar rats weighting 250-300 g were divided into 5 groups (n = 8) including sham, 3-NP group (10 mg/kg) as control and treatment groups (3-NP + safranal 0.75, 1.5 and 3 mg/kg) in two weeks duration of treatment. Behavioral/movement assessments in addition to oxidant/antioxidant markers in rat cortex and striatum were evaluated in control and treatment groups. Here, we found that safranal significantly alleviated 3-NP-induced changes of body weight, rotarod activity, number of vacuous chewing movements (VCMs), and locomotor activity. In addition, brain tissue assessments in cortex and striatum revealed that safranal could prevent the elevation of nitrite and malondialdehyde (MDA) levels as well as decrease of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase activity and glutathione (GSH) induced by 3-NP. In conclusion our results showed that safranal prevented the motor dysfunction induced by 3-NP in animal model of Huntington's disease. This effect might be due to its modulating effect on oxidants-antioxidant balance.

• Authors: Ahmad Fotoohi, Mohammad Raman Moloudi, Saed Hosseini, Kambiz Hassanzadeh, Marco Feligioni, Esmael Izadpanah
• Journal: Neurochemical research (Neurochem Res) Vol. 46 Issue 6 Pg. 1372-1379 (Jun 2021) ISSN: 1573-6903 [Electronic] United States
• PMID: 33611726 (Publication Type: Journal Article)

Chemical References

• Antioxidants
• Cyclohexenes
• Neuroprotective Agents
• Nitro Compounds
• Propionates
• Terpenes
• safranal
• Malondialdehyde
• Catalase
• Superoxide Dismutase
• Glutathione
• 3-nitropropionic acid

Topics

• Animals
• Antioxidants (therapeutic use)
• Behavior, Animal (drug effects)
• Body Weight (drug effects)
• Catalase (metabolism)
• Cerebral Cortex (drug effects, enzymology)
• Cyclohexenes (therapeutic use)
• Glutathione (metabolism)
• Huntington Disease (chemically induced, drug therapy, enzymology)
• Locomotion (drug effects)
• Male
• Malondialdehyde (metabolism)
• Mastication (drug effects)
• Neuroprotective Agents (therapeutic use)
• Nitro Compounds
• Propionates
• Rats, Wistar
• Rotarod Performance Test
• Superoxide Dismutase (metabolism)
• Terpenes (therapeutic use)