Flavonoids:emerging trends and potential health benefits

Flavonoids are widely used in industry for the prevention of various diseases.In daily life we are directly in touch with flavonoids due to their presence in different beverages,fruits and vegetables.Flavonoids are mainly used as a coloring agent in plants,antioxidant and nutritional food for human.Flavonoids have explicit role in UV filtration,symbiotic nitrogen fixation and floral pigmentation.Flavonoids have potential for different biological activities like chelation of metals,decreasing platelets aggregation and cell signaling etc.

BACKGROUND: Cerebrovascular disease often causes dysfunction of the brain nerve, and nerve cel apoptosis is the important factor of cerebral nerve dysfunction. The excessive expression of c-fos can block the transduction of intracelular signal so that producing some apoptosis-promoting factors, which involve in nerve cel apoptosis process after ischemia injury of brain. Bcl-2 is an inhibited factor. It might to be the key to treat ischemic cerebrovascular disease by inhibiting or reducing the apoptosis of nerve cels after ischemia injury. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the therapeutic effect and mechanism of the Total Flavone of Hawthorn Leaf on chronic cerebral ischemia rats. METHODS: A total of 72 healthy male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into sham surgery group, model group, Total Flavone of Hawthorn Leaf group and ginkgo leaf group. Permanent bilateral carotid artery ligation was used to prepare chronic cerebral ischemia model in the model group, Total Flavone of Hawthorn Leaf group and ginkgo leaf group. Total Flavone of Hawthorn Leaf group and ginkgo leaf group respectively received 140 mg/kg Total Flavone of Hawthorn Leaf and 12.3 mg/kg ginkgo leaf intragastricaly for 36 days from 36 days after model induction. Model group and sham surgery group received 3.5 mL/kg physiological saline intragastricaly. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Compared with the model group, the expression of c-fos protein significantly deceased in the Total Flavone of Hawthorn Leaf group (P < 0.01), Bcl-2 expression levels significantly increased (P < 0.01), and Ca2+ content decreased (P < 0.05). Moreover, no significant difference in above indexes was detected between Total Flavone of Hawthorn Leaf group and ginkgo leaf group (P> 0.05). These data indicated that the protective effect of Total Flavone of Hawthorn Leaf on chronic cerebral ischemia was associated with its inhibition of neuronal apoptosis. Its mechanism of anti-apoptosis might be associated with up-regulating expression of Bcl-2, down-regulating expression of c-fos and decreasing Ca2+ content in brain.