Ischemic stroke is the most common type of
stroke and brings about a big disease burden because of high mortality and disability in China.
Tetrandrine, a
bisbenzylisoquinoline alkaloid isolated from the Chinese herb Radix Stephania tetrandra, has been demonstrated to possess anti-inflammatory and
free radical scavenging effects and even regulate astrocyte activation, but the possible role of
tetrandrine in ameliorating
cerebral ischemia/
reperfusion injury of
ischemic stroke remains unknown. The aim of this study was to determine the effects of
tetrandrine on neurological injury and differential proteomic changes induced by transient reversible
middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) in mice. Male Balb/c mice were divided into
sham (n = 30), MCAO + saline as control (n = 30), and MCAO + Tet as
tetrandrine-treated (n = 30) groups. Mice in the control and
tetrandrine-treated groups underwent 120 min of MCAO following reperfusion. Immediately and 2 h after MCAO, the mice received either
normal saline (
sham operated and control groups) or
tetrandrine (
tetrandrine-treated group) intraperitoneally. Neurological defects, brain water content, and
infarct volume at 24 h after stoke were used to evaluate neurological injury extent. Treatment with
tetrandrine not only mitigated cerebral neurological deficits (P < 0.05) and
infarct size (P < 0.01), but also decreased brian
edema in the ischemic brain (P < 0.05). Then, fluorescence two-dimensional difference in gel electrophoresis was used to detect our systematic differential profiling of proteomic changes responding to
tetrandrine administration. We validated that the expression of
GRP78, DJ-1 and HYOU1 was associated with
neuroprotective effect of
tetrandrine in MCAO model by Western blotting. These findings indicate a potential neuroprotective role of
tetrandrine for
ischemic stroke and yield insights into cellular and molecular mechanisms of
tetrandrine taking place in
ischemic stroke.