Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Effect of Hawthorn on Drosophila Melanogaster Antioxidant-Related Gene expression

Yan Zhang¹, Ting-ting Shen², Su-wen Liu³, Jiang Zhao¹, Wen Chen¹, Hao Wang¹

¹Key Laboratory of Food Nutrition and Safety, (Tianjin University of Science and Technology), Ministry of Education; ²School of Biological Engineering, Tianjin University of Science & Technology, Tianjin 300457; ³Department of Food Science and Technology, Hebei Normal University of Science and Technology, Qin Huangdao, Hebei 066004, PR China.

For correspondence:- Hao Wang Email: cpzyyan@163.com

Received: 4 December 2013 Accepted: 13 February 2014 Published: 24 March 2014

Citation: Zhang Y, Shen T, Liu S, Zhao J, Chen W, Wang H. Effect of Hawthorn on Drosophila Melanogaster Antioxidant-Related Gene expression. Trop J Pharm Res 2014; 13(3):353-357 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v13i3.6

© 2014 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To study the effects of various doses of hawthorn extract on Drosophila lifespan, antioxidant enzyme activity and expression of antioxidant-related regulation genes.

Methods: Experiments with Drosophila as an animal model were conducted. The effects of hawthorn on Drosophila melanogaster antioxidant related gene expression were investigated by lifespan tests of Drosophila, antioxidant enzyme activity assay of Drosophila, and mRNA expression of antioxidant genes by real time-PCR assay.

Results: The results indicate that hawthorn extract prolonged the life span of Drosophila, with 50 % survival time of 0.8 and 4 mg/mL groups being increased from 52 days (control) to 56 and 62 days, respectively. Addition of 0.8 mg/mL hawthorn extract increased CuZn-SOD enzyme activity significantly (p < 0.05); the 4 mg/mL extract significantly increased CuZn-SOD enzyme (p < 0.01) and CAT enzyme activity (p < 0.05), but decreased MDA levels. Real time-PCR results show that the 4 mg/mL extract significantly improved the expression levels of CuZn-SOD and CAT mRNA (p < 0.05); on the other hand, both extract concentrations improved PHGSH-Px mRNA level significantly compared with that of control group (p < 0.05).

Conclusion: The antioxidant activity of hawthorn in vivo may be achieved by increasing endogenous antioxidant enzymes.

Keywords: Drosophila melanogaster, Hawthorn, Lifespan, Enzyme, Gene expression, Phospholipid hydroperoxide glutathione peroxidase, Superoxide dismutase, Cata