Crocetin alleviates inflammation in MPTP-induced Parkinson's disease models. - GreenMedInfo Summary

Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease. Crocetin, derived from saffron, exerts multiple pharmacological properties, such as anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antifatigue, and anticancer effects. However, the effect of crocetin on PD remains unclear. In this study, we designed experiments to investigate the effect of crocetin against MPTP-induced PD models and the underlying mechanisms. Our results showed that crocetin treatment attenuates MPTP-induced motor deficits and protects dopaminergic neurons. Bothandexperiments demonstrated that crocetin treatment decreased the expression of inflammatory associated genes and inflammatory cytokines. Furthermore, crocetin treatment protected mitochondrial functions against MPP+ induced damage by regulating the mPTP () viability in the interaction of ANT () and Cyp D () dependent manner. Therefore, our results demonstrate that crocetin has therapeutic potential in Parkinson's disease.