摘要
Oxidative stress is one of the major mechanisms implicated in carbon ion irradiation[1;2]. Curcumin is a naturalphenolic compound with impressive antioxidant properties[3]. What's more, curcumin is recently proved to exertradioprotective effect. In vivo, we investigated the protective effects of curcumin against 12C6+radiation-inducedcerebral injury.Our results showed that 4 Gy heavy ion radiation-induced spatial strategy and memory decline (Fig. 1), reductionof brain Superoxide Dismutase (SOD) activity levels, were all consistently improved by curcumin, as well as theaugmentation of cerebral malonaldehyde (MDA), was lowered by curcumin (Fig. 2). Furthermore, both the cerebralcells Nuclear erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) protein and three typically recognized Nrf2 downstream genes,NADP(H) quinine oxidoreductase 1 (NQO1), heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1), and -glutamyl cysteine synthetase (-GCS) were consistently up-regulated in curcumin-pretreated mice (Fig. 3).
