An Assay of Bax and Bcl2 Expression in Mice Hippocampus Following Ischemia-Reperfusion Treatment with CoQ10

Introduction: Preliminary studies confirmed reduction of cell death following treatment with antioxidants. According to this finding we investigated the relationship between consumption of CoQ10 and expression of bax and bcl2 in hippocampus ischemia that this expression related to cell programmed death. Material and Methods: We studied the protective role of CoQ10 against ischemia-reperfusion. Experimental design includes four groups: intact (N=7), ischemic control (N=7), sham control (N=7) and treatment groups with CoQ10 (N=7). The mice (treatment group) treated with CoQ10 as Pre-Treatment for a week. Then, ischemia induced by common carotid artery ligation and following the reduction in inflammation (a week) the treatment group post-treated with CoQ10 for a week. Nissl staining applied to counting necrotic cells of hippocampus and the western blotting performed to measurement the bax and bcl2 expression. Tunnel kit was used to quantify apoptotic cell death while to short term memory scale, we apply Y-maze. Results: Cell death was significantly lower when mice treated with CoQ10. Bax expression was significantly high in ischemic group but in treatment group was less and reversely the bcl2 expression in ischemic group was lower than treatment and vehicle groups. The memory test results were consistent with cell death results. Conclusion: Ischemia for 15 minutes induced cell death in hippocampus with more potent effect on CA1. CoQ10 intake significantly reduced cell death and decreased memory loss. with prevent of expression of bax and increase in expression of bcl2.