Wine-processed Chinese herb can treat neurodegenerative diseases

Washington – A new study has provided theoretical evidence for the treatment of neurodegenerative disease with 5-hydroxymethylfurfural extracted from wine-processed Fructus corni and lays the foundations for clinical prevention and treatment of oxidative injury-related diseases in the brain.

Studies have shown that Chinese herb, Fructus corni, also has a protective effect on hepatocytes, and has anticancer, antioxidative, anti-inflammatory and antiseptic properties.

5-hydroxymethylfurfural, a compound extracted from wine-processed Fructus corni, has a protective effect on hippocampal neurons damaged by H2O2.

Prof. Mingyan Wang and team from Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine for the first time, used cytobiological and molecular biology methods to investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying the neuroprotective effects of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural on rat hippocampal neurons injured by oxidative stress.

Researchers found that 5-hydroxymethylfurfural could protect against H2O2-induced rat hippocampal neuron apoptosis by regulation of expression levels of the apoptosis-related genes p53, bcl-2, bax and caspases.

The study was published in the Neural Regeneration Research.