Effect of berberine and Berberis aetnensis C. Presl. alkaloid extract on tissue transglutaminase in primary astroglial cell cultures

Agata Campisi (1) , Rosaria Acquaviva (1) , Silvana Mastrojeni (1) , Giuseppina Raciti (1) , Angelo Vanella (1) , Rita de Pasquale (2) , Salvatore Puglisi (1) , Liliana Iauk (3)

1 Unict - Università degli studi di Catania = University of Catania
2 University of Messina
3 Dept. of Microbiology

Berberis aetnensis C. Presl. is a bushy-spiny shrub common on Mount Etna (Sicily, Italy), containing various alkaloids with several pharmacological properties. Herein, we assessed the effect of berberine and of the alkaloid extract of B. aetnensis roots on the glutamate-evoked tissue transglutaminase (TG2) up-regulation in rat astrocyte primary cultures, used as an in vitro model of excitotoxicity. Our findings show that the alkaloid extract of B. aetnensis roots consists mainly of berberine. Furthermore, berberine and the alkaloid extract of B. aetnensis roots were able to restore the oxidative status modified by glutamate and the levels of TG2 to control values. We found that berberine or the alkaloid extract of B. aetnensis roots are able to ameliorate excessive production of glutamate, protein misfolding and aggregation, mitochondrial fragmentation, and neurodegeneration. Thus, we suggest that berberine and the alkaloid extract of B. aetnensis roots, may represent a natural therapeutic strategy in the neuropathological conditions associated to excitotoxicity.

Mots clés: Life Sciences

Agata Campisi, Rosaria Acquaviva, Silvana Mastrojeni, Giuseppina Raciti, Angelo Vanella, et al.. Effect of berberine and Berberis aetnensis C. Presl. alkaloid extract on tissue transglutaminase in primary astroglial cell cultures. Phytotherapy Research, 2010, ⟨10.1002/ptr.3340⟩. ⟨hal-00599842⟩