Protective Effect And Its Mechanism Of Velvet Antler Polypeptide (VAP) On Rats With The Spinal Cord Injuring

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is very common in clinic. SCI is usually caused by traffic accident, crash, industrial accident, violence and athletic injury. SCI is a major reason that lead to functional disability. In the United State, there will be 11, 000 SCI patients, whose cost is up to 770 billions, every year.SCI have already become a focus in medical field, now days.In this paper, we investigated the protection effect and the mechanism of antler polypeptide on SCI rats.1. The protective effect of antler polypeptide on model animalThe model rats were treated with different doses antler polypeptide for 7 days, the motor function of rats was recovered. The therapy effect in middle-dose group was the most oblivious. Significant difference (p<0.001) can be found compared with that of control group. The gray matter and white matter of spinal cord is are completed in the normal control group. The nerve cells distribute uniformity. The injury can be found in 1 day, bleeding, cellular swelling, cell vacuolar degeneration and structure unclear can be found. After treatment with different doses antler polypeptide, the SCI was reduced.2. The mechanism of the protective effect of antler polypeptide on SCI.Nogo, Bcl-2 and Bax up-regulated expression can be found in 48 hours operation group and each treatment group. In 7 days operation group, the Nogo, Bcl-2 and Bax positive cells can be found, the Nogo and Bax positive cells can be found in antler polypeptide treatment groups, the bcl-2 positive cell increased with the dose increased. In 15 days, it was similar to that in 7 days, but nogo positive cell decreased. No change can be found in normal control group.3. The mechanism of the inhibition on apoptosis of antler polypeptide in SCI.The FCW result showed the percentage rate of apoptosis cause by radiation is reduced with the concentration of antler polypeptide increased. The protective effect of antler polypeptide can be found in 400mg/mland 800mg/ml group. The immunity histochemistry assay found the caspase-3, Bcl-2 and Bax positive cells is brown. The caspase-3 and Bax positive cell decreased, bcl-2 positive cells increased in antler polypeptide group. RT-PCR and Western blot assay got the similar results.In conclusion, our results demonstrated that the antler polypeptide can protect the SCI rats by inhibition expression of Nogo, and apoptosis related genes. The FCW, RT-PCR and western blot assay showed the antler polypeptide can regulate the apoptosis to protect the SCI rats. Our research provided some methods and models in searching pharmacologic action of antler polypeptide.