Neuroprotective Activity and Mechanism of Actions of Plant Extracts

Nerve cell damage and apoptosis cause the organism to exhibit a variety of different symptoms. Although different types of neurodegenerative diseases have different causes, center locations, pathological processes, and typical symptoms, all of them have the phenomenon of central nerve damage or even apoptosis. Therefore, active ingredients with neuroprotective effects, which can significantly inhibit nerve damage, have become an important source of drugs for the effective prevention or treatment of related neurodegenerative diseases. Plant resources, including plant extracts, are a natural treasure trove for the screening of active ingredients for the treatment of various diseases. Modern pharmacological studies have shown that many plant extracts contain neuroprotective active ingredients, and Lifeasible can help you extract and screen plant extracts from roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits, and other parts of plants for neuroprotective and degenerative disease therapeutic uses.

Our Services for Neuroprotective Activity Study

Neuroprotective Activity In Vitro

• We can analyze the cell damage induction and activity assays, and we can help you select the most effective and least costly plant extracts.
• We provide model cell lines such as PC12, SHSY5Y, or primary cultured and isolated neuronal cells from specific central sites such as cortex, hippocampus, thalamus, etc., for use in neuronal protective activity assays of plant extracts.

In the study of isolated neuronal cells, we will select chemical reagents such as rotenone, ethanol, hydrogen peroxide, MPP+, MPTP/p, β-amyloid (Aβ), NO donor SNP, etc. to induce cell damage, apoptosis, or to establish in vitro cellular models of neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease (PD), etc., as needed. On this basis, plant extracts are then added to the culture system, and specific indicators such as cell morphology, cell viability, cell proliferation, etc. are compared between the control group and the treated group to reflect whether the extracts have neuronal protective activity and the strength of the activity.

MTT method is commonly used to detect cell viability, flow cytometry to analyze DNA content and cell proliferation activity, fluorescence staining to observe cell morphology, TUNEL to detect apoptosis, immunohistochemistry to detect the morphology and structure of microtubule proteins in the cells, Western Blot to detect protein expression, and fluorescence detection to detect the content of reactive oxygen species in the cells, and so on.

In Vivo Neuronal Protective Activity

In vivo, studies of the neuronal protective activity of plant extracts are mainly done on model animals such as mice and rats. We can provide targeted construction of animal models. Animal models of relevant neurodegenerative diseases are generally produced by surgical partial destruction of specific species of central sites, central nucleus reagent injections, and intraperitoneal injections.

An increasing number of plant active ingredients have been found to have significant neuroprotective activity, and these extracts focus on terpenoids, flavonoids, saponins, polyphenols, amides, polysaccharides, and alkaloids. Lifeasible can isolate and identify some of the monomer compounds in the extracts using large pore adsorbent resin, normal and reverse phase silica gel, high-performance liquid chromatography, as well as nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectrometry. Please feel free to contact us for screening and analyzing the neuronal protective activity of plant extracts.

※ For research or industrial raw materials, not for personal medical use!