Autophagy machinery plays an essential role in traumatic brain injury-induced apoptosis and its related behavioral abnormalities in mice: focus on Boswellia Sacra gum resin

Livia Interdonato; Ylenia Marino; Daniela Impellizzeri; Ramona D'Amico; Rosalba Siracusa; Roberta Fusco; Gaetano Cammilleri; Licia Pantano; Sergio Modafferi; Ali S Abdelhameed; Tilman Fritsch; Luay J Rashan; Salvatore Cuzzocrea; Vittorio Calabrese; Marika Cordaro; Rosanna Di Paola

doi:10.3389/fphys.2023.1320960

Autophagy machinery plays an essential role in traumatic brain injury-induced apoptosis and its related behavioral abnormalities in mice: focus on Boswellia Sacra gum resin

Front Physiol. 2024 Jan 5:14:1320960. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2023.1320960. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Livia Interdonato^#¹, Ylenia Marino^#¹, Daniela Impellizzeri¹, Ramona D'Amico¹, Rosalba Siracusa¹, Roberta Fusco¹, Gaetano Cammilleri², Licia Pantano², Sergio Modafferi³, Ali S Abdelhameed⁴, Tilman Fritsch⁵, Luay J Rashan⁶, Salvatore Cuzzocrea¹, Vittorio Calabrese³, Marika Cordaro⁷, Rosanna Di Paola⁸

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemical and Biological, Pharmaceutical and Environmental Sciences, University of Messina, Messina, Italy.
² Chemistry Department, Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale Della Sicilia, Palermo, Italy.
³ Department of Biomedical and Biotechnological Sciences, University of Catania, Catania, Italy.
⁴ Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
⁵ NAM-Institute, Salzburg, Austria.
⁶ Medicinal Plants Division, Research Center, Dhofar University, Salalah, Oman.
⁷ Department of Biomedical, Dental and Morphological and Functional Imaging University of Messina, Messina, Italy.
⁸ Department of Veterinary Sciences, University of Messina, Messina, Italy.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is described as a structural damage or physiological disturbance of brain function that occurs after trauma and causes disability or death in people of all ages. New treatment targets for TBI are being explored because current medicines are frequently ineffectual and poorly tolerated. There is increasing evidence that following TBI, there are widespread changes in autophagy-related proteins in both experimental and clinical settings. The current study investigated if Boswellia Sacra Gum Resin (BSR) treatment (500 mg/kg) could modulate post-TBI neuronal autophagy and protein expression, as well as whether BSR could markedly improve functional recovery in a mouse model of TBI. Taken together our results shows for the first time that BSR limits histological alteration, lipid peroxidation, antioxidant, cytokines release and autophagic flux alteration induced by TBI.

Keywords: Boswellia sacra; TBI; apoptosis; autophagy; behavioral.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This research has been conducted with funds from “Piano di incentivi per la Ricerca, Linea Intervento 2 PIACERI, 2020–2022”, University of Catania, Italy; and Researchers Supporting Project number (RSPD2024R750). King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia”.