Abstract

Background: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is one of the most prevalent diseases with rapidly increasing numbers, but there is still no medication to treat or stop the disease. Previous data on coumarins suggests that scopoletin may have potential benefits in AD.

Objective: Evaluate the therapeutic potential of the coumarins with natural origin - scopoletin and pteryxin- in a 5xFAD mouse model of AD.

Methods: Both compounds were administered at two doses to 12-month-old mice, which represent severe AD pathology. The effects of coumarins were assessed on cognition in mouse experiments. Changes in the overall brain proteome were evaluated using LCMS/ MS analyses.

Results: The Morris water maze test implicated that a higher dose of pteryxin (16 mg/kg) significantly improved learning, and the proteome analysis showed pronounced changes of specific proteins upon pteryxin administration. The amyloid-β precursor protein, glial fibrillary acid protein, and apolipoprotein E protein which are highly associated with AD, were among the differentially expressed proteins at the higher dose of the pteryxin.

Conclusion: Overall, pteryxin may be evaluated further as a disease-modifying agent in AD pathology in the late stages of AD.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease, 5xFAD, scopoletin, pteryxin, label-free proteomics, counter-current chromatography.