NAP prevents acute cerebral oxidative stress and protects against long-term brain injury and cognitive impairment in a model of neonatal hypoxia–ischemia

Neurobiology of Disease

João A.P. Henriques¹  Iuri M. de Oliveira¹  Cristiano Trindade¹  Renato M. Rosa²  Jaderson C. DaCosta³  Simone de Paula³  Samuel Greggio³ 

[1] Departamento de Biofísica, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil;Laboratório de Genética Toxicológica e Programa de Pós-Graduação em Genética e Toxicologia Aplicada, Universidade Luterana do Brasil (ULBRA), Canoas, RS, Brazil;Laboratório de Neurociências, Instituto do Cérebro e Instituto de Pesquisas Biomédicas, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Pediatria e Saúde da Criança, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil;

关键词: Perinatal hypoxia–ischemia;    NAP;    Neuroprotection;    Rat model;    Oxidative stress;    Memory;   

DOI  :  

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Hypoxia–ischemia (HI) is a common cause of neonatal brain damage with lifelong morbidities in which current therapies are limited. In this study, we investigated the effect of neuropeptide NAP (NAPVSIPQ) on early cerebral oxidative stress, long-term neurological function and brain injury after neonatal HI. Seven-day-old rat pups were subjected to an HI model by applying a unilateral carotid artery occlusion and systemic hypoxia. The animals were randomly assigned to groups receiving an intraperitoneal injection of NAP (3 μg/g) or vehicle immediately (0 h) and 24 h after HI. Brain DNA damage, lipid peroxidation and reduced glutathione (GSH) content were determined 24 h after the last NAP injection. Cognitive impairment was assessed on postnatal day 60 using the spatial version of the Morris water maze learning task. Next, the animals were euthanized to assess the cerebral hemispheric volume using the Cavalieri principle associated with the counting point method. We observed that NAP prevented the acute HI-induced DNA and lipid membrane damage and also recovered the GSH levels in the injured hemisphere of the HI rat pups. Further, NAP was able to prevent impairments in learning and long-term spatial memory and to significantly reduce brain damage up to 7 weeks following the neonatal HI injury. Our findings demonstrate that NAP confers potent neuroprotection from acute brain oxidative stress, long-term cognitive impairment and brain lesions induced by neonatal HI through, at least in part, the modulation of the glutathione-mediated antioxidant system.

【 授权许可】

Unknown