Study Investigates Whether Astragaloside IV Helps in Regeneration of Sciatic Nerve

Researchers led by Xiaohong Zhang from School of Pharmacutical Sciences, Jilin University conducted a study to test whether astragaloside IV, an important component of the traditional Chinese medicine astragalus membra-naceus which has shown to reduce inflammation, oxidation, and apoptosis and exert immu-noregulatory effects, is also effective in promoting the repair of injured sciatic nerve. Denervated sciatic nerve of mice was subjected to anastomosis. The mice were intraperitoneally injected with 10, 5, 2.5 mg/kg astragaloside IV per day for 8 consecutive days. The researchers found that astragaloside IV contributed to sciatic nerve regeneration and functional recovery in mice. The mechanism underlying this effect may be associated with the upregulation of growth-associated protein-43 expression. These findings were published the Neural Regeneration Research (Vol. 8, No. 24, 2013).


Source-Eurekalert