Anti-inflammatory and anti-apoptotic effect of Rhodiola crenulata extract on spinal cord injury in rats

Purpose: To investigate the effects of Rhodiola crenulata on injured spinal cord tissue recovery due to the presence of neuroprotective constituents such as salidroside, tyrosol, rosavins, and crenulatanoside.Methods: Effect of R. crenulata extract (RCE) at doses of 10, 20 and 50 mg kg-1 was investigated for spinal cord injury (SCI) recovery in rat. The anti-inflammatory activity was estimated by haematoxylineosin (H&E) staining and myeloperoxidase activity assay, while the anti-apoptotic effect was investigated by terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick-end labelling (TUNEL) and caspase-3 activity assays in SCI tissue.Results: RCE (10 mg mL-1) treatment resulted in a Basso, Beattie and Bresnahan (BBB) score of 14.50 ± 1.22, while negative control showed a BBB score of 6.17 ± 1.60. H&E staining in test groups treated with 20 and 50 mg kg-1 RCE showed statistically different (p < 0.05) histological scores (2.0 ± 0.37 and 1.83 ± 0.31, respectively) which are higher than those of SCI (S)-induced group. The estimates of apoptosis in SCI tissue) revealed significant differences from the normalised levels in RCE-treated groups.Conclusion: The plant extract produced good recovery of injured spinal tissue, suggesting that further clinical trials and chemical constituent studies are warranted.Keywords: Rhodiola crenulata, Haematoxylin-eosin, Caspase-3, Anti-inflammatory, Anti-apoptotic