ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Ethnopharmacology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2025.1597719
Iridoids derived from Valeriana jatamansi Jones alleviates neuroinflammation and blood spinal cord barrier permeability after spinal cord injury by activating the Nrf2/HO-1 signaling pathway
Provisionally accepted
Yongzhi He1,2,3Jiachun Lu4
Rizhao Pang2Lijuan Ding5Yunyun Wang6Hua Xiao2
Chao Cheng2Yushan Luo3
Xiaomin Hu2
Wenchun Wang2*- 1North Sichuan Medical College, Nanchong, Sichuan Province, China
- 2Department of Rehabilitation Medicine,General Hospital of Western theater Command, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
- 3Xichong County People's Hospital, Nanchong, Anhui Province, China
- 4Chengdu Eighth People's Hospital (Geriatric Hospital of Chengdu Medical College),, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
- 5College of Medicine, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
- 6The Second Affiliated Hospital, Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
1.Background: Valeriana jatamansi Jones , a globally utilized medicinal plant, exhibits favorable pharmacological effects against depression and tumors. Iridoids derived from V. jatamansi (IRFV) promote recovery following spinal cord injury (SCI). Inflammation and disruption of the blood-spinal cord barrier (BSCB) represent key pathological processes in SCI. However, the specific effects of IRFV on neuroinflammation and BSCB integrity remain unexplored.This study aims to elucidate the functional significance and molecular mechanisms by which IRFV modulates neuroinflammation and preserves BSCB function following SCI. Experimental results demonstrated that IRFV treatment significantly enhanced locomotor recovery in SCI models. Moreover, IRFV reduced macrophage infiltration and inhibited inflammatory mediator secretion, effectively attenuating the neuroinflammatory response. IRFV also mitigated BSCB permeability alterations by suppressing tight junction disruption and structural damage. In vitro experiments revealed that IRFV attenuated oxygen-glucose deprivation/reperfusion (OGD/R)-induced endothelial cell damage and tight junction protein degradation, suggesting a potential mechanism for its BSCB protection. Critically, the protective effects of IRFV were abolished upon suppression of the Nrf2/HO-1 pathway, demonstrating its essential role in this process.In conclusion, our study demonstrates that IRFV treatment activates the Nrf2/HO-1 signaling pathway, thereby suppressing neuroinflammation, mitigating blood-spinal cord barrier damage, and promoting recovery from SCI, thus highlighting its therapeutic potential.
Keywords: spinal cord injury, Neuroinflammation, Nrf2/HO-1 signaling pathway, Blood-spinal cord, Valeriana jatamansi Jones
Received: 21 Mar 2025; Accepted: 24 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 He, Lu, Pang, Ding, Wang, Xiao, Cheng, Luo, Hu and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Wenchun Wang, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine,General Hospital of Western theater Command, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.