Di Paolo Mattia, Corsi Francesca, Cerri Chiara, Bisti Silvia, Piano Ilaria, Gargini Claudia
Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40202, USA.
Istituto Nazionale di Biostrutture e Biosistemi (INBB), via Medaglie d'Oro 305, 00136 Roma, Italy.
Pharmaceuticals (Basel). 2023 Sep 15;16(9):1307. doi: 10.3390/ph16091307.
A mechanism shared by most neurodegenerative diseases, like Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD), is neuroinflammation. It has been shown to have a link between cognitive impairment and retinal function under neuroinflammatory conditions, confirming the essential role of the retina as a window to the brain. Here, we characterize a mouse model of LPS-induced neuroinflammation describing the parallel deterioration of both memory and visual function. Then, we demonstrate, using the Novel Object Recognition test (NOR) and electroretinogram (ERG) recordings, that preventive, chronic treatment with saffron Repron is able to reduce the neuroinflammation process and prevent the impairment of both cognitive and visual function. The improvement in behavioral and visual function is confirmed by the pattern of expression of neuroinflammation-related genes and related proteins where pre-treatment with Repron saffron presents a positive modulation compared with that obtained in animals treated with LPS alone. These results hold for retinal tissue and partially in the brain, where it appears that the onset of damage was delayed. This trend underlines the critical role of the retina as a most sensitive portion of the central nervous system to LPS-induced damage and could be used as a "sensor" for the early detection of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's.
大多数神经退行性疾病，如阿尔茨海默病（AD）和帕金森病（PD），都存在一个共同的机制，即神经炎症。研究表明，在神经炎症条件下，认知障碍与视网膜功能之间存在联系，这证实了视网膜作为大脑窗口的重要作用。在此，我们对脂多糖（LPS）诱导的神经炎症小鼠模型进行了表征，描述了记忆和视觉功能的平行衰退。然后，我们通过新颖物体识别测试（NOR）和视网膜电图（ERG）记录证明，用藏红花Repron进行预防性慢性治疗能够减轻神经炎症过程，并预防认知和视觉功能的损害。神经炎症相关基因和相关蛋白质的表达模式证实了行为和视觉功能的改善，与单独用LPS处理的动物相比，用藏红花Repron预处理呈现出正向调节。这些结果在视网膜组织中成立，在大脑中部分成立，在大脑中似乎损伤的发生被延迟了。这一趋势强调了视网膜作为中枢神经系统对LPS诱导损伤最敏感部分的关键作用，并且可以用作早期检测如阿尔茨海默病等神经退行性疾病的“传感器”。
