Identification of licopyranocoumarin and glycyrurol from herbal medicines as neuroprotective compounds for Parkinson's disease.

Abstract

In the course of screening for the anti-Parkinsonian drugs from a library of traditional herbal medicines, we found that the extracts of choi-joki-to and daio-kanzo-to protected cells from MPP+-induced cell death. Because choi-joki-to and daio-kanzo-to commonly contain the genus Glycyrrhiza, we isolated licopyranocoumarin (LPC) and glycyrurol (GCR) as potent neuroprotective principals from Glycyrrhiza. LPC and GCR markedly blocked MPP+-induced neuronal PC12D cell death and disappearance of mitochondrial membrane potential, which were mediated by JNK. LPC and GCR inhibited MPP+-induced JNK activation through the suppression of reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, thereby inhibiting MPP+-induced neuronal PC12D cell death. These results indicated that LPC and GCR derived from choi-joki-to and daio-kanzo-to would be promising drug leads for PD treatment in the future.

• Authors: Takahiro Fujimaki, Shinji Saiki, Etsu Tashiro, Daisuke Yamada, Mitsuhiro Kitagawa, Nobutaka Hattori, Masaya Imoto
• Journal: PloS one (PLoS One) Vol. 9 Issue 6 Pg. e100395 ( 2014) ISSN: 1932-6203 [Electronic] United States
• PMID: 24960051 (Publication Type: Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't)

Chemical References

• Antioxidants
• Coumarins
• Neuroprotective Agents
• Phenols
• Plant Extracts
• Reactive Oxygen Species
• licopyranocoumarin
• JNK Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinases

Topics

• Animals
• Antioxidants (chemistry, isolation & purification, pharmacology)
• Apoptosis (drug effects)
• Cell Survival (drug effects)
• Coumarins (chemistry, isolation & purification, pharmacology)
• Disease Models, Animal
• Drug Evaluation, Preclinical
• Herbal Medicine
• JNK Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinases (metabolism)
• Membrane Potential, Mitochondrial (drug effects)
• Neuroprotective Agents (chemistry, isolation & purification, pharmacology)
• PC12 Cells
• Parkinson Disease (drug therapy, metabolism)
• Phenols (chemistry, isolation & purification, pharmacology)
• Plant Extracts (chemistry, isolation & purification, pharmacology)
• Plants, Medicinal (chemistry)
• Rats
• Reactive Oxygen Species (metabolism)