Potentiation of neuritogenic activity of medicinal mushrooms in rat pheochromocytoma cells

BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Research Article

Murali Naidu¹  Kah-Hui Wong¹  Pamela David¹  Vikineswary Sabaratnam²  Syntyche Ling-Sing Seow² 

[1] Mushroom Research Centre, Faculty of Science, University of Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia;Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia;Mushroom Research Centre, Faculty of Science, University of Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia;Institute of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia;

关键词: Ganoderma lucidum;    Ganoderma neo-japonicum;    Grifola frondosa;    Neuritogenesis;    Neurodegenerative disease;    Nerve growth factor;    MEK/ERK signaling pathway;    PI3K/Akt signaling pathway;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6882-13-157

 received in 2013-01-18, accepted in 2013-06-28,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundSenescence of the neurons is believed to be a focal factor in the development of age-related neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. Diminutions in the levels of nerve growth factor (NGF) lead to major declines in brain cell performance. Functional foods, believed to mitigate this deficiency, will be reaching a plateau in the near future market of alternative and preventive medicine. In the search for neuroactive compounds that mimic the NGF activity for the prevention of neurodegenerative diseases, the potential medicinal values of culinary and medicinal mushrooms attract intense interest.MethodsCytotoxic effects of aqueous extracts of three medicinal mushrooms basidiocarps, Ganoderma lucidum, Ganoderma neo-japonicum and Grifola frondosa towards rat pheochromocytoma (PC-12) cells were determined by 3-(4,5-dimethythiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. The potentiation of neuritogenic activity was assessed by neurite outgrowth stimulation assay. Involvement of cellular signaling pathways, mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase/extracellular signal-regulated kinase (MEK/ERK1/2) and phosphoinositide-3-kinase/protein kinase B (PI3K/Akt) in mushrooms-stimulated neuritogenesis were examined by using specific pharmacological inhibitors. Alteration of neuronal morphology by inhibitors was visualized by immunofluorescence staining of the neurofilament.ResultsAll the aqueous extracts tested caused a marked stimulation of neuritogenesis with no detectable cytotoxic effects towards PC-12 cells. The aqueous extract of G. neo-japonicum triggered maximal stimulation of neurite outgrowth at a lower concentration (50 μg/ml) with 14.22 ± 0.43% of neurite-bearing cells, compared to G. lucidum and G. frondosa that act at a higher concentration (75 μg/ml), with 12.61 ± 0.11% and 12.07 ± 0.46% of neurite-bearing cells, respectively. The activation of MEK/ERK1/2 and PI3K/Akt signaling pathways were necessary for the NGF and aqueous extracts to promote neuritogenesis.ConclusionsGanoderma lucidum, G. neo-japonicum and G. frondosa may contain NGF-like bioactive compound(s) for maintaining and regenerating the neuronal communications network. The present study reports the first evidence of the neuritogenic effects of aqueous extracts of basidiocarps of G. neo-japonicum in-vitro and showed the involvement of MEK/ERK1/2 and P13K/Akt signaling pathways for neuritogenesis in PC-12 cells.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Ling-Sing Seow et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.