Journal
BEHAVIOURAL BRAIN RESEARCH
Volume 308, Issue -, Pages 177-186Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
DOI: 10.1016/j.bbr.2016.04.039
Keywords
Liquiritigenin; Depression; BDNF/TrkB; PI3 K/Akt/mTOR
Categories
Funding
- Foundation for Science of Chinese Medicine
- Foundation for Science of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [81403041]
- Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province [BK20140961, BK20140962]
- Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (PAPD)
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Major depression is a common long-lasting or recurrent psychiatric disease with high lifetime prevalence and high incidence of suicide. The main purpose of the current study was to verify whether liquiritigenin conferred an antidepressant-like effect on the depressive mouse model established by unpredictable chronic mild stress (UCMS) and explore its possible mechanism. The results of depression related behaviors including sucrose preference test (SPT), open field test (OFT), forced swimming test (FST) and tail suspension test (TST) indicated that both liquiritigenin (7.5 mg/kg, 15 mg/kg) and fluoxetine (20 mg/kg) dramatically improved the depression symptoms. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) revealed that treatment with liquiritigenin significantly reduced the concentrations of pro inflammatory cytokines including interleukin (IL)-6, IL-1 beta and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha in serum and hippocampus. Compared with the UCMS group, the administrations of liquiritigenin, increased levels of superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione (GSH), catalase (CAT), and decreased Malondialdehyde (MDA) content. Meanwhile, glucocorticoids (GC) content was reduced in the liquiritigenin group, which suggested that liquiritigenin exhibiting the ameliorative effect on activated hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis stimulated with UCMS. Mice treated with liquiritigenin showed restored levels of neurotransmitter norepinephrine (NE) and serotonin (5-HT). Western blot analysis displayed up-regulated expressions of p-phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3 K), p-Akt, p-mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), p-tropomyosin-related kinase B (TrkB), brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). Thus, it was supposed that liquiritigenin might be useful for the treatment of chronic depression possibly through PI3 K/Akt/mTOR mediated BDNF/TrkB pathway. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available