Pharmacological activities of crocin in saffron

Abstract

The effect of crocin on improving ethanolinduced impairment of learning behaviors of mice in passive avoidance tasks is reported. Based on these results, it became evident that crocin prevents the inhibitory effect of ethanol on long-term potentiation (LTP) in the dentate gyrus in vivo. We confirmed that crocin inhibits tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-a-induced apoptosis of PC-12 cells. PC-12 cells showed a rapid increase in cellular ceramide levels, followed by an increase in the phosphorylation of c-Jun kinase (JNK), leading to apoptosis by serum/glucose deprivation in the medium. The production of ceramide was dependent on the activation of magnesium-dependent neutral sphingomyelinase (N-SMase), but not on de novo synthesis. The oxidative stress also decreased the cellular levels of glutathione (GSH), which is the potent inhibitor of N-SMase. Crocin treatment resulted in the prevention of N-SMase activation, ceramide production and JNK phosphorylation. Exploration of the crocin's preventive mechanism in oxidative stress-induced cell death revealed that the activities of GSH reductase and c-glutamylcysteinyl synthase (c-GCS) in the c-glutamyl cycle affected the stable GSH supply that blocks the activation of N-SMase. These results strongly support the importance of the proposed GSHdependent inhibitory mechanism in oxidative stressmediated cell death.

Evaluation of antioxidant activities of bioactive compounds and various extracts obtained from saffron (Crocus sativus L.): a review

“…In a study by Soeda et al (2007), crocin, as the unique water-soluble carotenoids in the nature, was found to become active in maintaining normal serum/ glucose-deprived cells morphology than α-tocopherol. They concluded that crocin may have potential for treating neurodegenerative damage induced by oxidative stress.…”

“…They concluded that crocin may have potential for treating neurodegenerative damage induced by oxidative stress. If antioxidant activity varies directly as the number of double bonds, therefore crocin which has seven double bonds in a molecule should be as more effective antioxidant than α-tocopherol (Bathaie and Mousavi 2010;Soeda et al 2007). Assimopoulou et al (2005) believed that the antioxidant activity of C. sativus stigma could be attributed to two bioactive compounds, crocin and safranal.…”

“…Oxidative stress is considered to play an important role in a variety of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzhemer's disease, Parkinson's disease and etc. (Soeda et al 2007). Reactive oxygen species (ROS) and free radical (FR) have been implicated in the etiology of various human diseases including inflammation, cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes through induction of lipid peroxidation in cellular membranes (Choil et al 2006).…”

“…Many studies have demonstrated various pharmacological effects of saffron and or its important compounds including antioxidant activity, anti tumor, memory and learning enhancing, treatment of hepatic disorders, anti inflammatory, anti depressant and insulin resistant reducing (Sanchez-Vioque et al 2012;Makhlouf et al 2011;Umigai et al 2011;Ghadrdoost et al 2011;Amin et al 2011;Dhar et al 2009;Nkhaei et al 2008;Ochiai et al 2007;Soeda et al 2007;Abdullaev and Espinosa-Aguirre 2004). All these properties have been attributed to the stigmas, the sole commercially valuable part of the plant whereas other parts of the plant have been much less studied.…”

“…Interest in the impact of saffron carotenoids on human health is due to their high antioxidant capacity which was investigated by many researchers (Makhlouf et al 2011;Asdaq and Inamdar 2010;Karimi et al 2010;Bathaie and Mousavi 2010;TavakkolAfshari et al 2008;Kanakis et al 2007;Soeda et al 2007;Magesh et al 2006;Ochiai et al 2004;Selim et al 2000;Verma and Bordia 1998;Nair et al 1995). One of hypothesis for the modes of anti carcinogenic and anti tumor actions of saffron has been proposed the inhibitory effect on free radical chain reactions (Makhlouf et al 2011).…”