[Effect of Gold Belt combined with methylprednisolone on motor function and brain-derived neurotrophic factor expression in rats following traumatic spinal cord injury].
OBJECTIVE
To study the effects of a Gold Belt (GB, a traditional Chinese herbal medicine) combined with methyl-prednisolone (MP) on the motor function and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) expression in rats with contusive spinal cord injury (SCI).


METHODS
Thirty adult female SD rats were randomly divided into 5 equal groups, namely the sham-operated group, SCI group, SCI with MP treatment group (MP group, with intramuscular injection of 50 mg/kg MP within 8 hours after SCI and then dosage reduced 10 mg/kg daily), SCI with GB treatment group (GB group, with intragastric gavage of GB 50 mg/kg once daily for 7 days), and combined GB and MP treatment group. The Basso, Beattie and Bresnahan (BBB) locomotor scale was used to evaluate the hindlimb motor function of the rats on days 1, 3, 7, 14, 21 and 28 after the injury. After the last evaluation the rats were sacrificed for immunohistochemistry to observe the localization of BDNF in the ventral and dorsal horn of spinal cord.


RESULTS
BDNF were distributed mainly in neurons in the spinal cord grey matter ventral horn and dorsal horn of the rats. The number of BDNF-positive neurons and BBB scores in the combined treatment group were significantly higher than those in the other 4 groups (P<0.05).


CONCLUSIONS
GB combined with MP produces better therapeutic effects for treating SCI than GB or MP used alone, and such effects are probably related with enhanced BDNF expression in the spinal cord.
Department of Pathogen Biology and Immunology, Kunming Medical University, Kunming 650500, China.E-mail: licuiying2002@126.com.
Cuiying
C
Li
Zhengguang
Z
Xu
Tinghua
T
Wang
D000818:Animals; D019208:Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor / Q000378:metabolism*; D004365:Drugs, Chinese Herbal / Q000494:pharmacology*; D005260:Female; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008775:Methylprednisolone / Q000494:pharmacology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000378:metabolism; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D013119:Spinal Cord Injuries / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000378:metabolism
D019208:Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor; D004365:Drugs, Chinese Herbal; D008775:Methylprednisolone