Fucoxanthin ameliorates traumatic brain injury by suppressing the blood-brain barrier disruption

Li Zhang; Zhigang Hu; Wanshan Bai; Yaonan Peng; Yixing Lin; Zixiang Cong

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.108270

Fucoxanthin ameliorates traumatic brain injury by suppressing the blood-brain barrier disruption

iScience. 2023 Oct 20;26(11):108270. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.108270. eCollection 2023 Nov 17.

Authors

Li Zhang¹, Zhigang Hu¹, Wanshan Bai¹, Yaonan Peng¹, Yixing Lin¹, Zixiang Cong¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Neurosurgery, Jinling Hospital, Affiliated Hospital of Medical School, Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, P.R.China.

Abstract

Fucoxanthin is the most abundant marine carotenoid extracted from seaweed. Our previous study has shown that fucoxanthin inhibited oxidative stress after traumatic brain injury (TBI). However, the effects of fucoxanthin on TBI-induced blood-brain barrier (BBB) destruction have not been well understood. In the present study, we found that fucoxanthin improved neurological dysfunction, reduced brain edema, attenuated cortical lesion volume, and decreased dendrites loss after TBI in vivo. Moreover, fucoxanthin suppressed BBB leakage, preserved tight junction (TJ) and adherens junction (AJ) proteins, and inhibited MMP-9 expression. Furthermore, fucoxanthin alleviated apoptosis and ferroptosis, and activated mitophagy in endothelial cells (ECs) after TBI. However, the protection of fucoxanthin on BBB was attenuated when mitophagy was inhibited. Importantly, fucoxanthin also provided protective effects in bEnd.3 cells after TBI. Taken together, our results suggested that fucoxanthin played a key role in the protection of BBB after TBI through mitophagy.

Keywords: Cellular physiology; Molecular neuroscience; Neuroscience.