Comparison of analgesic activities of aconitine in different mice pain models

PLoS One. 2021 Apr 1;16(4):e0249276. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0249276. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

Aconitine (AC) is the primary bioactive and secondary metabolite alkaloidin of Aconitum species which is accounted for more than 60% of the total diester-diterpenoid alkaloids in Aconite. To evaluate the analgesic effects of AC, 4 different pain models including hot plate assay, acetic acid writhing assay, formalin and CFA induced pain models were adopted in this study. In hot plate experiment, AC treatment at concentration of 0.3 mg/kg and 0.9 mg/kg improved the pain thresholds of mice similar to the positive drug aspirin at the concentration of 200 mg/kg (17.12% and 20.27% VS 19.21%). In acetic acid writhing experiment, AC significantly reduced the number of mice writhing events caused by acetic acid, and the inhibition rates were 68% and 76%. These results demonstrated that AC treatment revealed significant analgesic effects in both acute thermal stimulus pain model and chemically-induced visceral pain model. The biphasic nociceptive responses induced by formalin were significantly inhibited after AC treatment for 1h or 2h. The inhibition rates were 33.23% and 20.25% of AC treatment for 1h at 0.3 mg/kg and 0.9 mg/kg in phase I. In phase II, the inhibition rates of AC and aspirin were 36.08%, 32.48% and 48.82% respectively, which means AC showed similar analgesic effect to non-steroidal anti-inflammatory compounds. In the chronic CFA-induced nociception model, AC treatment also improved mice pain threshold to 131.33% at 0.3 mg/kg, which was similar to aspirin group (152.03%). Above all, our results verified that AC had obviously analgesic effects in different mice pain models.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Acetic Acid / toxicity
  • Aconitine / therapeutic use*
  • Analgesics / therapeutic use*
  • Animals
  • Aspirin / therapeutic use
  • Disease Models, Animal
  • Edema / chemically induced
  • Edema / drug therapy
  • Edema / pathology
  • Female
  • Formaldehyde / toxicity
  • Freund's Adjuvant / toxicity
  • Hot Temperature
  • Mice
  • Mice, Inbred C57BL
  • Pain / chemically induced
  • Pain / drug therapy*
  • Pain / pathology
  • Pain Threshold

Substances

  • Analgesics
  • Formaldehyde
  • Freund's Adjuvant
  • Acetic Acid
  • Aspirin
  • Aconitine

Grants and funding

This research was funded by the projects of National Natural Science Foundation of China [81874367], Natural Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars of Guangdong Province, China [2017A030306033], Guangdong Province Universities and Colleges Pearl River Scholar Funded Scheme (2016), Project of Educational Commission of Guangdong Province of China [2016KTSCX012], Pearl River Nova Program of Guangzhou, China [201710010108].