Icariin prevents depression-like behaviors in chronic unpredictable mild stress-induced rats through Bax/cytoplasm C/caspase-3 axis to alleviate neuronal apoptosis

Major depressive disorder (MDD) affects approximately 16% of the global population. Our previous study has demonstrated that icariin (ICA) exhibits anti-depressant activity by increasing the expression of Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) in a rat model of chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS). In this study, we investigated whether and how ICA can prevent CUMS-induced depression-like behaviors in rats by modulating hippocampus neuronal apoptosis. Forty male rats were randomly divided into control, CUMS, CUMS-fluoxetine (Flx) (10 mg/kg), and CUMS-ICA (20 mg/kg) groups. Behavior tests including sucrose preference test (SPT), open field test (OFT), elevated plus-maze (EPM), and forced swimming tests (FST) were performed. The Nissl staining and TUNNEL assay were used to determine neuronal apoptosis. Subsequently, expression of glucocorticoid receptor (GR), Bcl-2, cytochrome C, caspase-3 and Bax in the hippocampus were tested by western blot. Our results show that a chronic administration of ICA (20 mg/kg) can prevent CUMS-induced depressant-like behaviors in male model rats. Additionally, ICA significantly inhibited mitochondrial translocation of GR, reduced mitochondrial outer membrane permeabilization (MOMP) to suppress the release of cytochrome C, and then inhibit the activation of caspase-3. In conclusion, our research provides new evidence to understand the anti-depressant activity of ICA, which relates to its inhibition of neuronal apoptosis in hippocampus through mitochondrial apoptotic pathway.