Potential protection of curcumin against amyloid β-induced toxicity on cultured rat prefrontal cortical neurons

The present study explored the effect of curcumin against amyloid beta (A beta)-induced toxicity on cultured rat primary prefrontal cortical neurons. The results showed that administration of 10 mu M of curcumin induced significantly protection against 20 mu M of A beta(25-35)-induced toxicity on the cultured rat primary prefrontal cortical neurons tested by MTT and TUNEL assays. We further examined the involvements of the apoptotic or anti-apoptotic proteins in curcumin protection against A beta(25-35)-induced cytotoxicity on cultured neurons and found that the content of apoptotic protein caspase-3 was increased and the content of anti-apoptotic factor Bcl(2) was decreased significantly after A beta(25-35) treatments, while administration of curcumin significantly inhibited the A beta(25-35)-induced increases in the content of caspase-3 and inhibited the A025-35-induced decreases in the content of Bcl2 tested by Western blot. The results suggest that curcumin protects cultured rat primary prefrontal cortical neurons against A beta-induced cytotoxicity, and both Bcl2 and caspase-3 are involved in the curcumin-induced protective effects. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.