Effects of Some Lamiaceae Species on NO Production and Cell Injury in Hydrogen Peroxide-induced Stress.

Nitric oxide (NO) is a key mediator that plays an important role in pathogenesis of various chronic diseases like Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. Additionally, there is a great attitude for finding natural compounds, which could control and inhibit NO production in pathological conditions. Therefore, we were encouraged to investigate the effects of some Lamiaceae species on NO production and cell injury during oxidative stress in PC12 cells. In this study, cell death determined by MTT assay and NO levels were evaluated using Griess assay. PC12 cells were exposed to total metanolic extracts of three and one species. The results revealed that () could protect PC12 cells from hydrogen proxide-induced oxidative stress and all of the plants inhibited NO production in that condition except (). In addition, () was meanwhile subjected to fractionation using different organic solvents. The dichloromethan and ethyl acetate fractions of could protect PC12 cells from oxidative stress injury. However, NO production was restrained by the hexane and dichloromethane fractions. Considering the results, , () and are good candidates for further investigations in neuroprotection and anti-inflammation studies.