Harmine, a natural β-carboline alkaloid, ameliorates apoptosis by decreasing the expression of caspase-3 in the kidney of diabetic male Wistar rats

Harmine exhibits anti-apoptotic properties and reduces diabetes-induced testicular damage caused by streptozotocin in rats

OBJECTIVE

Diabetes mellitus induces fertility problems in men, mainly because of increased free radicals. Natural resources are effective for male infertility treatment. This study investigated the effects of harmine, an alkaloid available in Peganum harmala L., on the male reproductive system of diabetic rats.

METHODS

We divided 32 rats into four groups, and eight were randomly placed in each group. For diabetes induction, the animals received 50 mg/kg of streptozotocin intraperitoneally. After 1 week, animals received 15 mg/kg of harmine (28 days; intraperitoneal). Histopathological examinations, serum levels of male hormones, levels of nitric oxide (NO) and malondialdehyde (MDA) in the testes, total antioxidant capacity (TAC), insulin serum levels, fasting blood glucose levels, the apoptotic index, and semen analysis were assessed.

RESULTS

The diabetes group exhibited morphological changes in testicular tissue, significant decreases in the diameter of the seminiferous tubule, the Johnsen score, testosterone, luteinizing hormone, follicle-stimulating hormone, insulin serum levels, and TAC in testicular tissue (p<0.01). Harmine treatment ameliorated the morphological changes in the testes and improved sperm parameters relative to the diabetes group (p<0.05). The NO and MDA levels in the testes, fasting blood glucose serum levels, and apoptotic index parameters were significantly elevated in the diabetes group, while in the diabetes+harmine group, these parameters were reduced (p<0.01).

CONCLUSION

Harmine protects testicular tissue and sperm against diabetes-induced damage. This effect of harmine is associated with a rebalancing of the antioxidant capacity that subsequently decreases apoptosis in the testes.

Harmine alleviated STZ-induced rat diabetic nephropathy: A potential role via regulating AMPK/Nrf2 pathway and deactivating ataxia-telangiectasia mutated (ATM) signaling

Diabetic nephropathy (DN) is a serious kidney disorder driven by diabetes and affects people all over the world. One of the mechanisms promoting NF-κB-induced renal inflammation and injury has been theorized to be ATM signaling. On the other hand, AMPK, which can be activated by the naturally occurring alkaloid harmine (HAR), has been proposed to stop that action. As a result, the goal of this study was to evaluate the therapeutic effectiveness of HAR against streptozotocin (STZ)-induced DN in rats through AMPK-mediated inactivation of ATM pathways. Twenty male Wistar rats were grouped into 4 groups, as follow: CONT, DN, HAR (10 mg/kg), DN + HAR, where HAR was daily administered I.P. once for 2 weeks. The renal AMPK and PGC-1α expressions, as well as Sirt1 levels, were assessed. To ascertain the oxidative reactions, renal Nrf2 expression, HO-1, MDA, and TAC concentrations were measured. As parts of ATM pathways, ATM and p53 expressions, in addition to GSK-3β levels were determined. Renal expression of NEMO, TNF-α, and IL-6 levels were also estimated. Moreover, histopathological and immunohistochemical detection of Bcl-2, Bax, and caspase 3 were reported. Results indicated that HAR intake notably alleviated STZ-induced kidney damage by triggering AMPK and Sirt1, which in turn boosted PGC-1α, improved NRf2/HO-1 axis, and lowered ROS production. As a consequence, HAR blocked the ATM-triggered renal inflammation and minimized caspase-3 expression by repressing the Bax/Bcl2 ratio. Because of its ability to activate AMPK/Nrf2 axis, HAR may represent an emerging avenue for future DN therapy by blocking ATM pathways.

Enrichr-KG: bridging enrichment analysis across multiple libraries

Gene and protein set enrichment analysis is a critical step in the analysis of data collected from omics experiments. Enrichr is a popular gene set enrichment analysis web-server search engine that contains hundreds of thousands of annotated gene sets. While Enrichr has been useful in providing enrichment analysis with many gene set libraries from different categories, integrating enrichment results across libraries and domains of knowledge can further hypothesis generation. To this end, Enrichr-KG is a knowledge graph database and a web-server application that combines selected gene set libraries from Enrichr for integrative enrichment analysis and visualization. The enrichment results are presented as subgraphs made of nodes and links that connect genes to their enriched terms. In addition, users of Enrichr-KG can add gene-gene links, as well as predicted genes to the subgraphs. This graphical representation of cross-library results with enriched and predicted genes can illuminate hidden associations between genes and annotated enriched terms from across datasets and resources. Enrichr-KG currently serves 26 gene set libraries from different categories that include transcription, pathways, ontologies, diseases/drugs, and cell types. To demonstrate the utility of Enrichr-KG we provide several case studies. Enrichr-KG is freely available at: https://maayanlab.cloud/enrichr-kg.

Improving health benefits with considering traditional and modern health benefits of Peganum harmala

Background

Medicinal plants are potential source of natural products that play an important role in preventing different human diseases. P. harmala is used traditionally as emmenagogue and an abortifacient agent in the Middle East, North of Africa and West of China. It belongs to the family of Zygophyllaceae and it is a wild growing flowering plant. Its seeds are main medicinal part of the plant.

Methods

The current searching was done by the keywords in main indexing systems including PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, and Institute for Scientific Information Web of Science as well as the search engine of Google Scholar. The keywords were wild rue, traditional medicine, Harman, health benefits, and pharmaceutical science.

Results

The most important uses of P. harmala in traditional pharmaceutical sciences are in cardiovascular, gasterointestinal, nervous, endocrine, neoplasm and tumors, pain relieving, organisms, diabetes, respiratory, disinfectant, anti-pyretic, skin and hair, rheumatism, arthritis and inflammation, and ulcers. Pharmacological effects of P. harmala are in cardiovascular system, nervous system, antimicrobial effects, antineoplasm, nervous system, endocrine, gastrointestinal effects, osteocytes, endocrine and respiratory system. Phenolic compounds are the main reason of antioxidant capacity.

Conclusions

Due to its pharmacological activities, P. harmala is a high potential medicinal herb and the suggestion is to increases by doing research in efficacy and safety.

Assessment of the Anti-apoptotic Effects of Peganum harmala Leaf Extract on Type 2 Diabetes in the Kidney of Male Wistar Rats

Background: Growing evidence has shown that the apoptosis of cells plays an important role in the advancement of the Diabetic nephropathy (DN). Objectives: This study attempted to discover the therapeutic potential of Peganum harmala leaf extract in the apoptosis of diabetic kidney disease. Methods: In the present experimental research, 32 male Wistar rats were studied, and diabetes was induced by streptozotocin (STZ) (65 mg/kg). The animals were randomly divided into four groups (n=8, in each group) as follows: control, diabetic, control+leaf extract, diabetic+leaf extract. For our purposes, the methanolic extract of P. harmala leaves (150 mg/kg) was given by gavage for 28 days. Flow cytometry and real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analyses were utilized to determine the percentages of apoptotic cells. Also, histological alterations and blood biochemical parameters were evaluated. Results: The P. harmala leaf extract has a high amount of flavonoids (25.84%), a lower percentage of alkaloids (0.14%), and some antioxidant properties. Serum urea (P<0.001) and apoptosis (P<0.05) significantly elevated in diabetic rats relative to the control ones. The mean of fasting blood creatinine, urea, and albumin level was not significantly changed in diabetic+leaf extract rats as compared to the diabetic ones. Histopathological results also displayed that diabetic complications in the kidney could not be improved following treatment by the leaf extract of P. harmala. In addition, the leaf extract could not significantly reduce the apoptosis and caspase-3 expression compared to diabetics in renal cells. Conclusion: Based on our findings, the leaf extract of P. harmala is unable to inhibit apoptosis in the diabetic kidney model.