PI3K/Akt Pathway Contributes to Neurovascular Unit Protection of Xiao-Xu-Ming Decoction against Focal Cerebral Ischemia and Reperfusion Injury in Rats

Figure 9

The diagram of the cell signaling pathway which was involved in NVU protection of XXMD against cerebral injury following focal cerebral ischemia and reperfusion. Reperfusion after stroke induced dysfunction of PI3K/Akt pathway and the PI3K/Akt inhibition led to dephosphorylation of PDK1, Akt, and GSK3β degradation, resulting in apoptosis. However, XXMD treatment inhibited apoptosis of different cells in NVU and increased expression levels of p-PTEN, p-PDK1, p-Akt, and p-GSK3β. Furthermore, PI3K/Akt pathway is associated with Ras/MAPK pathway. In the present study, we also found that XXMD upregulated the level of p-c-raf. Above all, all the observations in the study indicated that XXMD may exert its NVU protection partly through the activation of PI3K/Akt signaling pathway.