Ferulic Acid Exerts Neuroprotective Effects via Autophagy Induction in <i>C. elegans</i> and Cellular Models of Parkinson’s Disease
Tao Long, Qian Wu, Jing Wei, Yong Tang, Yan-Ni He, Chang-Long He, Xue Chen, Lu Yu, Chong‐Lin Yu, Betty Yuen Kwan Law, Jianming Wu, Dalian Qin, Anguo Wu, Xiaogang Zhou
Abstract
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a complex neurological disorder characterized by motor and nonmotor features. Although some drugs have been developed for the therapy of PD in a clinical setting, they only alleviate the clinical symptoms and have yet to show a cure. In this study, by employing the C. elegans model of PD, we found that ferulic acid (FA) significantly inhibited α ‐synuclein accumulation and improved dyskinesia in NL5901 worms. Meanwhile, FA remarkably decreased the degeneration of dopaminergic (DA) neurons, improved the food‐sensing behavior, and reduced the level of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in 6‐OHDA‐induced BZ555 worms. The mechanistic study discovered that FA could activate autophagy in C. elegans , while the knockdown of 3 key autophagy‐related genes significantly revoked the neuroprotective effects of FA in α ‐synuclein‐ and 6‐OHDA‐induced C. elegans models of PD, demonstrating that FA exerts an anti‐PD effect via autophagy induction in C. elegans . Furthermore, we found that FA could reduce 6‐OHDA‐ or H 2 O 2 ‐induced cell death and apoptosis in PC‐12 cells. Moreover, FA was able to induce autophagy in stable GFP‐RFP‐LC3 U87 cells and PC‐12 cells, while bafilomycin A1 (Baf, an autophagy inhibitor) partly eliminated the protective effects of FA against 6‐OHDA‐ and H 2 O 2 ‐induced cell death and ROS production in PC‐12 cells, further confirming that FA exerts an anti‐PD effect via autophagy induction in vitro. Collectively, our study provides novel insights for FA as a potent autophagy enhancer to effectively prevent neurodegenerative diseases such as PD in the future.