AIM To investigate the effects of huperzine A (Hup A) on NMDA receptors in rat cerebral cortex. METHODS 1) The effect of hup A on NMDA-induced current was studied in acutely dissociated rat hippocampal pyramidal neurons using whole-cell recording. 2) The effect of Hup A on NMDA receptor binding was assessed using [3H] dizocilpine (Diz) binding assay in synaptic membrane preparation of rat cer...

Acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitors improve the cognitive abilities of Alzheimer patients. (-)-Huperzine A [(-)-HupA], an alkaloid isolated from the club moss, Huperzia serrata, is one such inhibitor, but the search for more potent and selective drugs continues. Recently, alkylene-linked dimers of 5-amino-5,6,7,8-tetrahydroquinolinone (hupyridone, 1a), a fragment of HupA, were shown to serve...

OBJECTIVES This study aims to explore whether Huperzine A (HupA) could protect neural stem cells against amyloid beta-peptide Aβ induced apoptosis in a neural stem cells (NSCs) and microglia co-culture system. METHODS Rat NSCs and microglial cells were isolated, cultured and identified with immunofluorescence Assays (IFA). Co-culture systems of NSCs and microglial cells were employed using Tr...

The objectives here are to provide a systematic review of the current evidence concerning the use of Chinese herbs in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and to understand their mechanisms of action with respect to the pathophysiology of the disease. AD, characterized microscopically by deposition of amyloid plaques and formation of neurofibrillary tangles in the brain, has become the mos...

XIAOMIN LUO, CHENG FENG, XIAO-JIAN TAN, CHANGHENG TAN, DAYUAN ZHU, JIANHUA SHEN, XIAOQIN HUANG, TONG LIU, KAIXIAN CHEN and HUALIANG JIANG∗,† Center for Drug Discovery & Design and State Key Laboratory of Drug Research, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 294 Taiyuan Road, Shanghai 200031, P. R. China ∗[email protected]...

Growth and differentiation of ovarian follicles are regulated by systemic and local factors, which may include acetylcholine (ACh). Granulosa cells (GCs) of growing follicles and luteal cells produce ACh and in cultured GCs it exerts trophic actions via muscarinic receptors. However, such actions were not studied in vivo. After having established that rat ovarian GCs and luteal cells express th...