• Journal of Life Science
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• v.17 no.1 s.81
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• pp.143-149
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• 2007

Scutellaria baicalensis GEORGI(SB) is used in oriental medicine for the treatment of incipient strokes. Although it has been reported that SB is neuroprotective in a hypoxia model, its mechanism is poorly understood. Here, we investigated the effect of SB on the modulation of retinoic acid receptor a (RARa). Rat cerebrocortical cells were grown in neurobasal medium. On DIV12 cells were treated with SB $(20{\mu}g/ml)$ and given a hypoxic shock $(2%\;O_2/5%\;CO_2,\;3hr)$ on DIV14. In situ hybridization using cRNA probe revealed that RARa mRNA punctae are distributed, in addition to nucleus, throughout neuronal dendrites, where SB upregulated its density by 69.8% (p=0.001) and 129.8% (p=0.001) in both normoxia and hypoxia, respectively. At the protein level, SB upregulated RARa in the neuronal soma by 78.8% (p=0.004) and 23.6% (p=0.001) in both normoxia and hypoxia, respectively. These results indicate that SB upregulates RARa in both normoxia and hypoxia, which might contribute to the neuroprotection.