earticle

영어

Peripheral nerve injuries are commonly encountered clinical problem and often result in chronic pain and severe functional deficit. Diosgenin is a plant steroidal saponin and has anti-inflammatory and anticancer effects. In the present study, we investigated the effect of diosgenin on functional recovery following sciatic crushed nerve injury in rats. Walk-ing track analysis for the functional recovery which can be quantified with the sciatic function index (SFI) was conducted. Immunohistochem-istry for c-Fos in the ventrolateral periaqueductal gray (vlPAG) and paraventricular nucleus (PVN) and western blot for brain-derived neu-rotrophic factor (BDNF), tyrosine kinase B (TrkB), cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), and inducible nitric oxide synthesis (iNOS) in the sciatic nerve were performed. The right sciatic nerve was crushed for 30 sec using a surgical clip. The animals in the diosgenin-treated groups received oral-ly once a day at the respective doses for 7 consecutive days, starting one day after surgery. Sciatic crushed nerve injury showed character-istic gait changes showing decrease of SFI value. Diosgenin treatment increased the SFI value and suppressed nerve injury-induced c-Fos ex-pression in the vlPAG and PVN. Diosgenin treatment inhibited nerve in-jury-induced increase of BDNF, TrkB, COX-2, and iNOS expressions. It is possible that diosgenin can be used as the new therapeutic agent for pain control and functional recovery following peripheral nerve injury.