Abstract
This study aimed to analyze whether taurine has a nootropic effect on short-term and long-term memory in a model of sporadic dementia of the Alzheimer’s type (SDAT). Moreover, we evaluated the immunoreactivity and insulin receptor (IR) distribution and markers for neurons and glial cells in the hippocampus of rats with SDAT and treated with taurine. For this, Male Wistar rats received STZ (ICV, 3 mg/kg, bilateral, 5ul per site, aCFS vehicle) and were treated with taurine (100 mg/kg orally, 1 time per day, saline vehicle) for 25 days. The animals were divided into 4 groups: vehicle (VE), taurine (TAU), ICV-STZ (STZ) and ICV-STZ plus taurine (STZ + TAU). At the end of taurine treatment, short- and long-term memory were assessed by performance on object recognition and Y-maze tasks. Insulin receptor (IR) was evaluated by immunoperoxidase while mature neurons (NeuN), astrocytes (GFAP, S100B, SOX9), and microglia (Iba-1) were evaluated by immunofluorescence. STZ induced worse spatial and recognition memory (INDEX) in YM and ORT tasks. Taurine protected against STZ-induced memory impairment. SDAT reduced the population of mature neurons as well as increased astrocytic and microglial reactivity, and taurine protected against these STZ-induced effects, mainly in the CA1 region of the hippocampus. Taurine increases IR expression in the hippocampus, and protects against the reduction in the density of this receptor in CA1 induced by STZ. In conclusion, these findings demonstrate that taurine is able to enhance memory, up-regulates IR in the hippocampus, protects the neuron population, and reduces the astrogliosis found in SDAT.
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The authors are grateful for all the support offered by the technician of the Pathology Research Laboratory, Teresinha Stein.
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F.H, A.M.Z, G.N.S and J.M.G performed stereotactic surgery, drug preparation and animal care; G.N.S and F.H performed behavioral tests; F.H, A.M.Z and G.N.S performed immunofluorescence assays; M.C.F, F.H and L.F.K performed the optical density microscopic analysis; J.M.G, M.C.F and F.H wrote the main text of the manuscript and J.M.G and F.H prepared scheme 1 and Figs. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7. All authors reviewed the manuscript.
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The authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support were received during the preparation of this manuscript. The authors would like to thank the scholarships that allowed the execution of this project. These scholarships were funded by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES, Brazil) Finance Code 001. Fernanda Huf, Gabrielle N. da Silva, Luiz Felipe C. Koenig and Adriana M. Zago received PhD scholarships from the CAPES program, and Jessié M. Gutierres was supported by the National Postdoctoral Program (PNPD/CAPES).
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Huf, F., Gutierres, J.M., da Silva, G.N. et al. Neuroprotection elicited by taurine in sporadic Alzheimer-like disease: benefits on memory and control of neuroinflammation in the hippocampus of rats. Mol Cell Biochem (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11010-023-04872-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11010-023-04872-3