Resveratrol Regulates Mitochondrial Biogenesis and Fission/Fusion to Attenuate Rotenone-Induced Neurotoxicity

Figure 4

Resveratrol improves mitochondrial biogenesis inhibited by rotenone. Representative immunoblots of proteins and electrophoretic bands of genes involved in mitochondrial biogenesis. β-actin is used as an internal control to normalize the amount of proteins and mRNA. (a, b) In vivo model results show that protein and mRNA expression of PGC-1α and mtTFA are reduced in rotenone-exposed rats compared to the control group. Resveratrol pretreatment significantly increased protein and mRNA expression of PGC-1α and mtTFA, which were suppressed by rotenone treatment. (c, d) Western blot and RT-PCR analysis show that rotenone inhibited mitochondrial biogenesis in vitro and that resveratrol could relieve the suppression of the two proteins and genes. (e) Results show that rotenone induces a decrease of cell viability with statistical significance. Resveratrol restores the damage of PC12 cells induced by rotenone with significant difference. However, after all three treatments, there is no significant change in viability of PC12 cells with PGC-1α knocked down compared with that of wild PC12 cells. (f) The mitochondrial DNA copy number is significantly lower in the R group compared with that in the control group. Resveratrol significantly enhances mitochondrial DNA copy number in PC12 cells exposed to rotenone. The results are presented as the mean ± S.E.M. The values were generated from three independent experiments. versus control group; versus R group; versus R group; versus R + RSV group.

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