Carnosol, a component of rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis... : NeuroReport (original) (raw)

NEUROCHEMISTRY

Carnosol, a component of rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis L.) protects nigral dopaminergic neuronal cells

Kim, Sung-Juna *; Kim, Jae-Sunga *; Cho, Hong-Sukb d; Lee, Hyo Jungb c; Kim, Sang Yongb c; Kim, Seungd; Lee, Sook-Youngb; Chun, Hong Sunga b

aDepartment of Biotechnology

bResearch Center for Proteineous Materials, Chosun University

Departments of cBio-Materials

dGenetic Science, Graduate School of Chosun University, Gwangju, Republic of Korea

Correspondence and requests for reprints to Dr Hong Sung Chun, PhD, Department of Biotechnology, Chosun University, 375 Seosuk-dong, Gwangju 501-759, Republic of Korea

Tel/fax: +82 62 230 6609; e-mail: [email protected]

Sponsorship: This study was supported by the SRC/ERC program of MOST/KOSEF (R11-2000-083-02006-0), BK21 program of MOE and the technology development program for Agriculture and Forestry, MAF/ARPC, Republic of Korea.

Received 27 July 2006; accepted 28 July 2006

*These authors contributed equally to this study.

Abstract

Carnosol, a major component of Rosmarinus officinalis, is a phenolic diterpene that has potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities. In this study, we investigated the protective effects of carnosol on rotenone-induced neurotoxicity in cultured dopaminergic cells. Results showed that cell viability was significantly improved with carnosol through downregulation of caspase-3. Furthermore, carnosol significantly increased the tyrosine hydroxylase, Nurr1, and extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2. These results suggest that carnosol may have potential as a possible compound for the development of new agents to treat Parkinson's disease.