Intracellular Signaling Pathway Of Neuroprotective Function Of BDNF On Hypoxic-cultured Embryonic Cortical Neurons Of Rat In Vitro

Perinatal asphyxia is one of the main factors leading to cerebral injuries and neurodevelopmental impairment and can be fatal in severe cases. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is the most abundant neurotrophin in many parts of brain, such as pallium, hippocampus and so on. BDNF can promote growth, development and survival of neurons through integrating to its specific receptor tyrosine kinase B (TrkB). When brain suffers from hypoxia, ischemia, hypoglycemia and trauma injury, the expression of BDNF and TrkB will responsely and markedly increase, while BDNF treatment can effectively protect neurons from kinds of injury-induced neurotoxicity.Our previous study showed that the death of the embryonic rat cortical neurons exposed to hypoxia were be delayed after BDNF treatment. The signaling mechanisms underlymg the neuro- -protective function of BDNF have not been well explored. Many studies in vitro have demonstrated that the neuroprotective function of BDNF can be mediated mainly via activation of the mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3- K) pathway. In most cases, MAPK pathway is considered as predominant pathway. The family members of MAPK includes extracellular signal-regulated kinases (ERK1/2), p38 MAPK , and c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), which can response to various...