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Safflower yellow attenuates learning and memory deficits in amyloid β-induced Alzheimer’s disease rats by inhibiting neuroglia cell activation and inflammatory signaling pathways

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Abstract

Safflower yellow (SY) is an aqueous extract of natural safflower. Our laboratory has reported protective effects of alleviating memory impairment with SY in a transgentic mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease. The possible beneficial effects of SY on amyloid-β-induced neuroinflammation in dementia remain unclarified. This study we hypothesize that astrocytes and microglia may cause amyloid-β deposition and produce a neuroinflammatory response, aims to explain the role and mechanism of SY in regulating glial activation and reducing Aβ deposition in Aβ1–42 induced rat model. Wistar rats were treated with SY for one month after bilateral hippocampal injection of aggregated Aβ1–42; behavioral tests were performed to demonstrate the amelioration of cognitive function. After that, the contents of iNOS, IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α in AD brain was detected. Western blot and real-time PCR were used to detect the M1 and M2-associated markers to demonstrate the activation of microglia. The conducted experiments have revealed that SY could strengthen spatial learning and memory ability of dementia rats, decrease the contents of iNOS, IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α and depress the activation of glial cells. Moreover, the SY treatment inhibited the M1 release of pro-inflammatory cytokines (iNOS and CD86), increased the expression of arginase-1, CD206, and YM-1 thereby reduced inflammation in model rats. Thus our results indicated that SY has very important theoretical and clinical value for the research and development of Chinese medicine for the treatment of AD.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Project of Social Development of the Corps (No. 2016 AD001), Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81660603).

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Author notes

  1. Lu Zhang and Zhangjiuzhi Zhou contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Xinjiang Phytomedicine Resource and Utilization, Ministry of Education, Department of Pharmacology, Shihezi University, Shihezi, Xinjiang, 832000, People’s Republic of China

    Lu Zhang, Zhangjiuzhi Zhou, Wei Zhai, Jie Pang, Yuyan Mo, Guang Yang, Zuwei Qu & Yanli Hu

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  1. Lu Zhang
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  2. Zhangjiuzhi Zhou
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  3. Wei Zhai
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Correspondence to Yanli Hu.

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Animal studies

Animals were treated according to the guidelines of Animal Management Rules of the Ministry of Health of the People’s Republic of China (documentation Number 55, 2001, Ministry of Health of PR China). The experiments were approval by the Committee of Experimental Animal Administration of Shihezi University.

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Zhang, L., Zhou, Z., Zhai, W. et al. Safflower yellow attenuates learning and memory deficits in amyloid β-induced Alzheimer’s disease rats by inhibiting neuroglia cell activation and inflammatory signaling pathways. Metab Brain Dis 34, 927–939 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11011-019-00398-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11011-019-00398-0

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