Patchouli Alcohol Improves the Integrity of the Blood-Spinal Cord Barrier by Inhibiting Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress Through the Akt/CHOP/Caspase-3 Pathway Following Spinal Cord Injury

Chongan Huang; Weiqi Zhang; FeiFan Chu; Hao Qian; Yining Wang; Fangzhou Qi; Mengke Ye; Jiaying Zhou; Zhi Lin; ChenLin Dong; Xiangyang Wang; Qingqing Wang; Haiming Jin

doi:10.3389/fcell.2021.693533

Patchouli Alcohol Improves the Integrity of the Blood-Spinal Cord Barrier by Inhibiting Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress Through the Akt/CHOP/Caspase-3 Pathway Following Spinal Cord Injury

Front Cell Dev Biol. 2021 Jul 22:9:693533. doi: 10.3389/fcell.2021.693533. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Orthopaedics, The Second Affiliated Hospital and Yuying Children's Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China.
² The First Affiliated Hospital, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China.

Abstract

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a destructive and complex disorder of the central nervous system (CNS) for which there is no clinical treatment. Blood-spinal cord barrier (BSCB) rupture is a critical event in SCI that aggravates nerve injury. Therefore, maintaining the integrity of the BSCB may be a potential method to treat SCI. Here, we showed that patchouli alcohol (PA) exerts protective effects against SCI. We discovered that PA significantly prevented hyperpermeability of the BSCB by reducing the loss of tight junctions (TJs) and endothelial cells. PA also suppressed endoplasmic reticulum stress and apoptosis in vitro. Furthermore, in a rat model of SCI, PA effectively improved neurological deficits. Overall, these results prove that PA exerts neuroprotective effects by maintaining BSCB integrity and thus be a promising candidate for SCI treatment.

Keywords: blood-spinal cord barrier; central nervous system; endoplasmic reticulum stress; patchouli alcohol; spinal cord injury.