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Coenzyme Q10 reduces expression of apoptotic markers in adult rat nucleus accumbens dopaminergic neurons treated with methamphetamine

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Abstract

Background

Abuse of addictive drugs such as methamphetamine (METH) has become a global problem, leading to many social, economic, and health disturbances, including neurological and cognitive disorders. Neuronal damage is reported in chronic METH abusers. The neuroprotective role of CoQ10 has been shown in many studies. In the present study, we aimed to assess the pre and post-efficacy of CoQ10 on the dopaminergic neurons of the Nucleus Accumbens (de Miranda et al. in Food Res Int 121:641–647, 2019) in the male adult rats treated with METH.

Methods

80 rats were randomly divided into eight groups (n = 10), including: negative control (intact), positive control (received 5 mg/kg/day METH/IP), three post-treatment groups (METH + 5, 10, 20 mg/kg CoQ10) and three pre-treatment groups (received 5, 10, 20 mg/kg CoQ10 as pre-treatment for 14 days before METH injection). The expression of Bax, Bcl-2, Bax/Bcl-2 ratio, P53, Caspase-3 and tyrosine hydroxylase in NAc studied using western blotting. Nissl staining was used to study the neuronal density of NAc.

Results

Our results showed that the different doses of CoQ10 in METH-treated animals significantly changed pro-apoptotic proteins’ expression in the benefit of neuronal survival of NAc (P < 0.05). Neuronal density in NAc were significantly lower in the METH group compared to the control and CoQ10 treated groups. Pre- and post-treatment with different doses of CoQ10 restored the neuronal damage in NAc.

Conclusions

CoQ10 could decrease the activation of pro-apoptotic proteins and reduce the neurodegenerative effects induced by METH. From a clinical point of view, it seems that certain antioxidants such as CoQ10 should receive more attention in clinical trial research. We believe that antioxidants could be the promising for drug abuse treatment in the future.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are deeply grateful to colleagues and laboratory staff of NRC/IUMS for their sincere collaboration and Vice-Chancellor of Research and Technology (Grant No. 8811215292).

Funding

The present research is supported by the Neuroscience Research Center (NRC) of the Iran University of Medical Science.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Neuroscience Research Center, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    S. B. Jameie, A. Kazemian, Z. Sanadgol, S. Asadzadeh Bayqara & Mana Sadat Jameie

  2. Department of Microbiology, Karaj Branch, Islamic Azad University, Karaj, Iran

    Z. Sanadgol & M. Farhadi

  3. Cardiovascular Diseases Research Institute, Tehran Heart Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Mana Sadat Jameie

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  1. S. B. Jameie
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Contributions

SBJ prepared the study design and budget planning as the PI of the project. MF, AK, ZS, SAB were involved in experiments and wrote the paper draft. SB and MJ collected the data, wrote first draft of the manuscript and edited. All the authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to M. Farhadi.

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The authors have declared that no conflict of interest exist.

Ethical approval

The ethic committee for animal research of Neuroscience Research Center affiliated to Iran University of Medical Sciences approved all the procedures used in this study (Ethical Code IR.IUMS.REC.1396.32724).

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All authors participated in the informed consent.

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Jameie, S.B., Kazemian, A., Sanadgol, Z. et al. Coenzyme Q10 reduces expression of apoptotic markers in adult rat nucleus accumbens dopaminergic neurons treated with methamphetamine. Mol Biol Rep 49, 2273–2281 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-021-07049-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-021-07049-7

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