title: Gingko biloba extract inhibits oxidative stress and ameliorates impaired glial fibrillary acidic protein expression, but can not improve spatial learning in offspring from hyperhomocysteinemic rat dams.
abstract: We aimed to study the effects of gingko biloba extract (EGb) on oxidative stress, astrocyte maturation and cognitive disfunction in offspring of hyperhomocysteinemic rats. Hyperhomocysteinemia was induced in the pregnant rats by administration of methionine (1 gr/kg body weight) dissolved in drinking water throughout pregnancy. One group of animals has received same amount of methionine plus 100 mg/kg/day EGb during pregnancy. On the postnatal day 1, half of the pups from all groups were sacrificed to study the lipid peroxidation (LPO) in different subfractions of brain. Other half of pups were tested in Morris water maze to assess differences in learning and memory performance at the 75 days of age. Maternal hyperhomocysteinemia significantly increased LPO levels especially in mitochondrial subfraction of fetal pup brains. EGb significantly prevented this LPO inrease. Methionine administration to animals reduced glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) expression in pup brains significantly. EGb administration improved GFAP expression significantly. Offspring of hyperhomocysteinemic animals had poor long term spatial memory performance on Morris water maze and EGb administration had no effect on impaired spatial memory. In conclusion, maternally induced hyperhomocysteinemia significantly increased oxidative stress, decreased expression of GFAP and impaired learning performance.
authors.affiliation: Malatya State Hospital, Physiology Laboratory, 44000 Malatya, Turkey. kozsema@hotmail.com
authors.forename: Sema T
authors.initials: ST
authors.lastname: Koz
authors.forename: Giyasettin
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Baydas
authors.forename: Suleyman
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Koz
authors.forename: Nevgul
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Demir
authors.forename: Viktor S
authors.initials: VS
authors.lastname: Nedzvetsky
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000187:drug effects; D001921:Brain / Q000187:drug effects / Q000378:metabolism; D005260:Female; D020441:Ginkgo biloba / Q000737:chemistry; D005904:Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein / Q000378:metabolism*; D020138:Hyperhomocysteinemia / Q000503:physiopathology*; D015227:Lipid Peroxidation; D008297:Male; D018782:Maze Learning / Q000187:drug effects*; D008568:Memory / Q000187:drug effects; D008715:Methionine; D008928:Mitochondria / Q000378:metabolism; D018384:Oxidative Stress / Q000187:drug effects*; D010936:Plant Extracts / Q000494:pharmacology*; D011247:Pregnancy; D011297:Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects / Q000503:physiopathology; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar
chemical_list: D005904:Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein; D010936:Plant Extracts; D008715:Methionine