Catalpol Mitigates Alzheimer's Disease Progression by Promoting the Expression of Neural Stem Cell Exosomes Released miR-138-5p.

Alzheimer's disease (Alzheimer's disease, AD) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by senile plaque deposition and neurofibrillary tangles. The pathogenesis of AD is complicated and the drugs used to treat AD are single-targeted drugs, which can only improve or alleviate the symptoms of patients, but cannot delay or prevent the progress of the disease. Because of its ability to act on multiple targets, multiple systems, multiple links, and multiple pathways, Chinese herbal compound prescriptions have shown unique advantages in the research and treatment of AD. Our previous study has demonstrated the protect role of the Chinese medicine Rehmannia in AD. However, the underlying mechanism remains unclear. In the present study, both in vitro and vivo experiments were employed, and we found Catalpol (Ca), the main extract of Rehmannia, could mitigate AD progression both in vitro and in vivo by promoting miR-138-5p level in neural stem cell secreted exosomes.