Maher Pamela
The Salk Institute, 10010 N. Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.
Free Radic Res. 2006 Oct;40(10):1105-11. doi: 10.1080/10715760600672509.
Neurotrophic factors promote the development, maintenance and regeneration of nerve cells. Classical neurotrophic factors are proteins and thus not well-suited for therapeutic purposes. Recently, we showed that specific flavonoids such as fisetin (3, 7, 3', 4' tetrahydroxyflavone) promote the differentiation of nerve cells in culture through the activation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) suggesting that flavonoids could substitute for neurotrophic factors. It has also been shown that fisetin promotes nerve cell survival following exposure to toxic oxidative insults. To determine whether or not this is unique to fisetin, a series of related compounds were assayed for neurotrophic activities. Many of these related compounds also promote nerve cell differentiation and are neuroprotective against toxic oxidative insults. However, the mechanisms underlying these neurotrophic effects differ among the compounds.
神经营养因子促进神经细胞的发育、维持和再生。经典的神经营养因子是蛋白质，因此不太适合用于治疗目的。最近，我们发现特定的黄酮类化合物，如非瑟酮（3,7,3',4'-四羟基黄酮），通过激活细胞外信号调节激酶（ERK）促进培养中的神经细胞分化，这表明黄酮类化合物可以替代神经营养因子。研究还表明，非瑟酮在神经细胞受到毒性氧化损伤后能促进其存活。为了确定这是否是非瑟酮独有的特性，我们对一系列相关化合物进行了神经营养活性检测。这些相关化合物中的许多也能促进神经细胞分化，并对毒性氧化损伤具有神经保护作用。然而，这些神经营养作用的潜在机制在不同化合物之间存在差异。
