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The Marine Alga Gelidium amansii Promotes the Development and Complexity of Neuronal Cytoarchitecture
Author(s) -
Hannan Md. Abdul,
Kang JiYoung,
Hong YongKi,
Lee HyunSook,
Choi JaeSuk,
Choi In Soon,
Moon Il Soo
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
phytotherapy research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.019
H-Index - 129
eISSN - 1099-1573
pISSN - 0951-418X
DOI - 10.1002/ptr.4684
Subject(s) - cytoarchitecture , neurotrophin , algae , biology , sargassum , neurotrophic factors , hippocampal formation , botany , microbiology and biotechnology , biochemistry , neuroscience , receptor
Neurotrophic factors are vital not only to support neuronal development but also to protect mature neurons from atrophy in neurodegenerative diseases. As an effort to explore natural sources that possess neurotrophic activity, we screened common marine algae for their neuritogenic activity in the developing rat hippocampal neurons in culture. Of the 22 seaweed species examined, ethanol extracts of Gelidium amansii (GAE) exhibited potent neuritogenic activity, followed by Undaria pinnatifida and Sargassum fulvellum extracts. The effects of GAE were dose dependent with an optimum concentration of 15 µg/mL. The GAE significantly promoted the initial neuronal differentiation from the stage I into the stage II and increased the indices of axonal and dendritic development such as the length, the numbers of primary processes, and branching frequencies by a minimum of twofold compared with the vehicle control. These results show that marine algae are promising candidates for neurotrophic potentials. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.