Citicoline Pretreatment Protects Rats Against Spinal Cord Ischemia-reperfusion Injury

Objective To determine the effects of citicoline pretreatment onspinal cord ischemia-reperfusion (IR) injury in rats.Methods Seventy-two male SD rats weighing210to250g wererandomly divided into3groups (n=24): sham operation group,ischemia-reperfusion injury (group IR) and citicoline pretreatment group(group citi). Every group was divided into four subgroups according to thetime after reperfusion for12、24、48and72h respectively (n=6). Aftermodified Zivin methods was used to establish model, Tarlov withmodification was used for neurological function scores at the abovementioned time points, HE staining was employed for L2-5spinal cordpathological changes, TUNEL method for calculation apoptosis cells，andimmunohistochemical assay for Bcl-2、Bax、caspase-9expression.Theratio of Bcl-2to Bax (Bcl-2/Bax) was calculated.Results Compared to Sham group, group IR and group citi showedsignificantly lower neurological function scores,obvious pathological injury， increased apoptosis nerve cells， enhanced expression ofcaspase-9， Bax and Bcl-2， and significantly lower Bcl-2/Baxratio（P<0.01）.However， citicoline pretreatment resulted in betteroutcomes in the above items compared to group IR（P<0.01）.Conclusion Citicoline pretreatment attenuates spinal cord IR injury,improve neurological function through up-regulation Bcl-2，down-regulation Bax and caspase-9， thus reducing neuronalapoptosis.