According to the WHO, about 50 million people worldwide suffer from dementia – a disease that causes a gradual deterioration in memory, mental abilities
A large number of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, lead to dementia. How they develop is still not clear, but they all have in common – a strong inflammation of the nervous tissue of the brain, from which numerous cells of the nervous system suffer
They change their shape and begin to produce a large number of chemical compounds that attract immune cells to the brain, further increasing inflammation. Therefore, to develop drugs that will help stop the development of neurodegenerative diseases, scientists are looking for anti-inflammatory substances.
Biologists from the A.V. Zhirmunsky National Research Center for Marine Biology have studied the anti-inflammatory activity of two derivatives of fatty acids – N-docosahexaenoylethanolamine (synaptamide) and N-eicosapentaenoylethanolamine (EPEA). Scientists have obtained these compounds from fatty acids contained in salmon.
To determine how much synaptamide and EPEA suppress inflammation, scientists treated artificially grown mouse microglial cells with them. Then a solution of lipopolysaccharide, a component of the bacterial cell wall, which artificially caused inflammation, was added to them.
The strength of the inflammatory response was determined by biologists by the amount of pro-inflammatory factors in cell cultures. It turned out that synaptamide and EPEA reduced the levels of these substances by up to 41 percent compared to samples that were treated with lipopolysaccharide only. In addition, both derivatives increased the amount of anti-inflammatory factors.
“ Our research has shown that synaptamide and EPEA are effective against the causes of inflammation in the nervous tissue, with synaptamide being more active. In the future, we plan to study in more detail their work on experimental animals. The results obtained open up broad prospects for the use of these compounds for the treatment and prevention of neurodegenerative diseases , ”says Anna Tyrtyshnaya, PhD in Biology, Senior Researcher, Project Manager for the RSF grant.
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