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

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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.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to the Vice Chancellor's office for Research Affairs and the Cellular & Molecular Research Center, Research Institute for Health Development, Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences for the grants supporting this work. This paper is the result of a medical thesis (1396/101) submitted to the Faculty of medicine.

Funding

This project has been supported with several grants from Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences.

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Author notes

  1. Ahmad Fotoohi and Mohammad Raman Moloudi have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Student Research Committee, Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences, Sanandaj, Iran

    Ahmad Fotoohi & Saed Hosseini

  2. Neurosciences Research Center, Research Institute for Health Development, Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences, Sanandaj, Iran

    Mohammad Raman Moloudi

  3. Cellular and Molecular Research Center, Research Institute for Health Development, Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences, Kudistan Province, Pasdaran Avenue, Sanandaj, Iran

    Kambiz Hassanzadeh & Esmael Izadpanah

  4. Laboratory of Neuronal Cell Signaling, EBRI Rita Levi-Montalcini Foundation, 00161, Rome, Italy

    Kambiz Hassanzadeh & Marco Feligioni

  5. Department of Neurorehabilitation Sciences, Casa di Cura del Policlinico, 20144, Milan, Italy

    Marco Feligioni

Authors
  1. Ahmad Fotoohi
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  2. Mohammad Raman Moloudi
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  3. Saed Hosseini
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  4. Kambiz Hassanzadeh
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  5. Marco Feligioni
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  6. Esmael Izadpanah
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Correspondence to Marco Feligioni or Esmael Izadpanah.

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Fotoohi, A., Moloudi, M.R., Hosseini, S. et al. A Novel Pharmacological Protective Role for Safranal in an Animal Model of Huntington’s Disease. Neurochem Res 46, 1372–1379 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11064-021-03271-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11064-021-03271-8

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