Resveratrol post-treatment protects against neonatal brain injury after hypoxia-ischemia

// Shulin Pan 1, * , Songlin Li 2, * , Yingying Hu 1 , Hao Zhang 1 , Yanlong Liu 3 , Huai Jiang 1 , Mingchu Fang 1 , Zhengmao Li 3 , Kebin Xu 3 , Hongyu Zhang 3 , Zhenlang Lin 1 , Jian Xiao 3 1 Department of Neonatology, The Second Affiliated Hospital and Yuying Children’s Hospital, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou 325000, China 2 The Institute of Life Sciences, Wenzhou University, Wenzhou 325035, China 3 The School of Pharmacy, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou 325035, China * These authors contribute equally to this work Correspondence to: Jian Xiao, email: xfxj2000@126.com Zhenlang Lin, email: linzhenlang@hotmail.com Keywords: resveratrol, hypoxia-ischemia, brain damage, inflammation, apoptosis Received: July 25, 2016      Accepted: October 19, 2016      Published: November 02, 2016 ABSTRACT Neonatal hypoxic-ischemic brain injury is a devastating disease with limited treatment options. Preventive treatment with resveratrol has indicated to be well tolerated and has lower toxicity in both experimental models and human patients. However, whether resveratrol administration post-hypoxic-ischemic protects against neonatal hypoxic-ischemic injury is not known. Here we reported that post-treatment with resveratrol significantly reduced brain damage at 7-day after the injury. We found that resveratrol reduced the expression levels of key inflammatory factors at the mRNA and protein levels, and at least partially via inhibiting microglia activation. Moreover, resveratrol exerted an anti-apoptotic effect, as assessed by TUNEL staining, and altered the expression of the apoptosis-related genes Bax, Bcl-2 and caspase3. Our data indicate that post-treatment with resveratrol protects against neonatal hypoxic-ischemic brain injury and suggest a promising therapeutic strategy to this disease.