Identification of licopyranocoumarin and glycyrurol from herbal medicines as neuroprotective compounds for Parkinson's disease

  • PLoS One. 2014 Jun 24;9(6):e100395. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0100395.
Takahiro Fujimaki  1 ,  Shinji Saiki  2 ,  Etsu Tashiro  1 ,  Daisuke Yamada  2 ,  Mitsuhiro Kitagawa  1 ,  Nobutaka Hattori  2 ,  Masaya Imoto  1
Affiliations
  • 1. Department of Biosciences and Informatics, Faculty of Science and Technology, Keio University, Yokohama, Japan.
  • 2. Department of Neurology, Juntendo University School of Medicine, Bunkyo, Tokyo.
PMID: 24960051 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0100395
Abstract

In the course of screening for the anti-Parkinsonian drugs from a library of traditional herbal medicines, we found that the extracts of choi-joki-to and daio-kanzo-to protected cells from MPP+-induced cell death. Because choi-joki-to and daio-kanzo-to commonly contain the genus Glycyrrhiza, we isolated licopyranocoumarin (LPC) and glycyrurol (GCR) as potent neuroprotective principals from Glycyrrhiza. LPC and GCR markedly blocked MPP+-induced neuronal PC12D cell death and disappearance of mitochondrial membrane potential, which were mediated by JNK. LPC and GCR inhibited MPP+-induced JNK activation through the suppression of Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) generation, thereby inhibiting MPP+-induced neuronal PC12D cell death. These results indicated that LPC and GCR derived from choi-joki-to and daio-kanzo-to would be promising drug leads for PD treatment in the future.

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