Abstract
Our previous studies confirm that exogenous reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) exerts a neuroprotective effect in animal models of ischemic stroke, and its primary mechanism is related to anti-oxidative stress and improved energy metabolism. However, it is unknown whether nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) also plays a neuroprotective role and whether NADPH is superior to NADH against ischemic stroke? In this study we compared the efficacy of NADH, NADPH, and edaravone in ameliorating brain injury and metabolic stress in ischemic stroke. Transient middle cerebral artery occlusion/reperfusion (t-MCAO/R) mouse model and in vitro oxygen glucose deprivation/reoxygenation (OGD/R) model were established. The mice were intravenously administered the optimal dose of NADPH (7.5 mg/kg), NADH (22.5 mg/kg), or edaravone (3 mg/kg) immediately after reperfusion. We showed that the overall efficacy of NADPH in ameliorating ischemic injury was superior to NADH and edaravone. NADPH had a longer therapeutic time window (within 5 h) after reperfusion than NADH and edaravone (within 2 h) for ischemic stroke. In addition, NADPH and edaravone were better in alleviating the brain atrophy, while NADH and NADPH were better in increasing the long-term survival rate. NADPH showed stronger antioxidant effects than NADH and edaravone; but NADH was the best in terms of maintaining energy metabolism. Taken together, this study demonstrates that NADPH exerts better neuroprotective effects against ischemic stroke than NADH and edaravone.
Similar content being viewed by others
Log in or create a free account to read this content
Gain free access to this article, as well as selected content from this journal and more on nature.com
or
References
Rodrigo R, Fernández-Gajardo R, Gutiérrez R, Matamala JM, Carrasco R, Miranda-Merchak A, et al. Oxidative stress and pathophysiology of ischemic stroke: novel therapeutic opportunities. CNS Neurol Disord Drug targets. 2013;12:698–714.
Khoshnam SE, Winlow W, Farzaneh M, Farbood Y, Moghaddam HF. Pathogenic mechanisms following ischemic stroke. Neurol Sci. 2017;38:1167–86.
Allen CL, Bayraktutan U. Oxidative stress and its role in the pathogenesis of ischaemic stroke. Int J Stroke. 2009;4:461–70.
Yang J, Qi J, Xiu B, Yang B, Niu C, Yang H. Reactive oxygen species play a biphasic role in brain ischemia. J Invest Surg. 2019;32:97–102.
Knecht T, Story J, Liu J, Davis W, Borlongan CV, Dela Peña IC. Adjunctive therapy approaches for ischemic stroke: innovations to expand time window of treatment. Int J Mol Sci. 2017;18:2756.
Enomoto M, Endo A, Yatsushige H, Fushimi K, Otomo Y. Clinical effects of early edaravone use in acute ischemic stroke patients treated by endovascular reperfusion therapy. Stroke. 2019;50:652–8.
Yang J, Cui X, Li J, Zhang C, Zhang J, Liu M. Edaravone for acute stroke: Meta-analyses of data from randomized controlled trials. Dev Neurorehabil. 2015;18:330–5.
Ying W. NAD+/NADH and NADP+/NADPH in cellular functions and cell death: regulation and biological consequences. Antioxid Redox Signal. 2008;10:179–206.
Goodman RP, Calvo SE, Mootha VK. Spatiotemporal compartmentalization of hepatic NADH and NADPH metabolism. J Biol Chem. 2018;293:7508–16.
Lu H, Burns D, Garnier P, Wei G, Zhu K, Ying W. P2X7 receptors mediate NADH transport across the plasma membranes of astrocytes. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2007;362:946–50.
Yang L, Lin X, Tang H, Fan Y, Zeng S, Jia L, et al. Mitochondrial DNA mutation exacerbates female reproductive aging via impairment of the NADH/NAD+ redox. Aging Cell. 2020;19:e13206.
Bertoldo MJ, Listijono DR, Ho WJ, Riepsamen AH, Goss DM, Richani D, et al. NAD+ repletion rescues female fertility during reproductive aging. Cell Rep. 2020;30:1670–81.e7.
Buettner GR, Wagner BA, Rodgers VG. Quantitative redox biology: an approach to understand the role of reactive species in defining the cellular redox environment. Cell Biochem Biophys. 2013;67:477–83.
Xiao W, Wang RS, Handy DE, Loscalzo J. NAD(H) and NADP(H) redox couples and cellular energy metabolism. Antioxid Redox Signal. 2018;28:251–72.
Li M, Zhou ZP, Sun M, Cao L, Chen J, Qin YY, et al. Reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate, a pentose phosphate pathway product, might be a novel drug candidate for ischemic stroke. Stroke. 2016;47:187–95.
Longa EZ, Weinstein PR, Carlson S, Cummins R. Reversible middle cerebral artery occlusion without craniectomy in rats. Stroke. 1989;20:84–91.
Marutani E, Kosugi S, Tokuda K, Khatri A, Nguyen R, Atochin DN, et al. A novel hydrogen sulfide-releasing N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonist prevents ischemic neuronal death. J Biol Chem. 2012;287:32124–35.
Sheng R, Liu XQ, Zhang LS, Gao B, Han R, Wu YQ, et al. Autophagy regulates endoplasmic reticulum stress in ischemic preconditioning. Autophagy. 2012;8:310–25.
Chen J, Zhang DM, Feng X, Wang J, Qin YY, Zhang T, et al. TIGAR inhibits ischemia/reperfusion-induced inflammatory response of astrocytes. Neuropharmacology. 2018;131:377–88.
Huang Q, Sun M, Li M, Zhang D, Han F, Wu JC, et al. Combination of NAD+ and NADPH offers greater neuroprotection in ischemic stroke models by relieving metabolic stress. Mol Neurobiol. 2018;55:6063–75.
Wu JY, Li M, Cao LJ, Sun ML, Chen D, Ren HG, et al. Protease Omi cleaving Hax-1 protein contributes to OGD/R-induced mitochondrial damage in neuroblastoma N2a cells and cerebral injury in MCAO mice. Acta Pharmacol Sin. 2015;36:1043–52.
Crupi R, Di Paola R, Esposito E, Cuzzocrea S. Middle cerebral artery occlusion by an intraluminal suture method. Methods Mol Biol. 2018;1727:393–401.
Clark WM, Lessov NS, Dixon MP, Eckenstein F. Monofilament intraluminal middle cerebral artery occlusion in the mouse. Neurol Res. 1997;19:641–8.
Meyer M, Kruse MS, Garay L, Lima A, Roig P, Hunt H, et al. Long-term effects of the glucocorticoid receptor modulator CORT113176 in murine motoneuron degeneration. Brain Res. 2020;1727:146551.
Kraeuter AK, Guest PC, Sarnyai Z. The Y-maze for assessment of spatial working and reference memory in mice. Methods Mol Biol. 2019;1916:105–11.
Yamada K, Tanaka T, Zou LB, Senzaki K, Yano K, Osada T, et al. Long-term deprivation of oestrogens by ovariectomy potentiates beta-amyloid-induced working memory deficits in rats. Br J Pharmacol. 1999;128:419–27.
Zhou Y, Wu J, Sheng R, Li M, Wang Y, Han R, et al. Reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate inhibits MPTP-induced neuroinflammation and neurotoxicity. Neuroscience. 2018;391:140–53.
Herbet M, Natorska-Chomicka D, Ostrowska M, Gawrońska-Grzywacz M, Izdebska M, Piątkowska-Chmiel I, et al. Edaravone presents antidepressant-like activity in corticosterone model of depression in mice with possible role of Fkbp5, Comt, Adora1 and Slc6a15 genes. Toxicol Appl Pharmacol. 2019;380:114689.
Matsumoto S, Murozono M, Kanazawa M, Nara T, Ozawa T, Watanabe Y. Edaravone and cyclosporine A as neuroprotective agents for acute ischemic stroke. Acute Med Surg. 2018;5:213–21.
Hua K, Sheng X, Li TT, Wang LN, Zhang YH, Huang ZJ, et al. The edaravone and 3-n-butylphthalide ring-opening derivative 10b effectively attenuates cerebral ischemia injury in rats. Acta Pharmacol Sin. 2015;36:917–27.
Zhu K, Swanson RA, Ying W. NADH can enter into astrocytes and block poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase-1-mediated astrocyte death. Neuroreport. 2005;16:1209–12.
Bylicky MA, Mueller GP, Day RM. Mechanisms of endogenous neuroprotective effects of astrocytes in brain injury. Oxid Med Cell Longev. 2018;2018:6501031.
Houtkooper RH, Cantó C, Wanders RJ, Auwerx J. The secret life of NAD+: an old metabolite controlling new metabolic signaling pathways. Endocr Rev. 2010;31:194–223.
Giroud-Gerbetant J, Joffraud M, Giner MP, Cercillieux A, Bartova S, Makarov MV, et al. A reduced form of nicotinamide riboside defines a new path for NAD+ biosynthesis and acts as an orally bioavailable NAD+ precursor. Mol Metab. 2019;30:192–202.
Scherz-Shouval R, Elazar Z. Regulation of autophagy by ROS: physiology and pathology. Trends Biochem Sci. 2011;36:30–8.
Cao L, Zhang D, Chen J, Qin YY, Sheng R, Feng X, et al. G6PD plays a neuroprotective role in brain ischemia through promoting pentose phosphate pathway. Free Radic Biol Med. 2017;112:433–44.
Niatsetskaya ZV, Sosunov SA, Matsiukevich D, Utkina-Sosunova IV, Ratner VI, Starkov AA, et al. The oxygen free radicals originating from mitochondrial complex I contribute to oxidative brain injury following hypoxia-ischemia in neonatal mice. J Neurosci. 2012;32:3235–44.
Kalogeris T, Baines CP, Krenz M, Korthuis RJ. Cell biology of ischemia/reperfusion injury. Int Rev Cell Mol Biol. 2012;298:229–317.
Li P, Stetler RA, Leak RK, Shi Y, Li Y, Yu W, et al. Oxidative stress and DNA damage after cerebral ischemia: potential therapeutic targets to repair the genome and improve stroke recovery. Neuropharmacology. 2018;134:208–17.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81730092), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province of China (BK20180207), Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Neuropsychiatric Diseases (BM2013003) and the Priority Academic Program Development of the Jiangsu Higher Education Institutes (PAPD).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
ZHQ contributed to the conception and design; XXW, FW, GHM, JCW, ML, RH, JS and RZ contributed to the acquisition of data or analysis and interpretation of data; XXW and FW drafted the paper; RS, ZC, and ZHQ supervised the experiments. All authors read and approved the final version to be published.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Supplementary information
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Wang, Xx., Wang, F., Mao, Gh. et al. NADPH is superior to NADH or edaravone in ameliorating metabolic disturbance and brain injury in ischemic stroke. Acta Pharmacol Sin 43, 529–540 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41401-021-00705-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41401-021-00705-5
Keywords
This article is cited by
-
VEGFD/VEGFR3 signaling contributes to the dysfunction of the astrocyte IL-3/microglia IL-3Rα cross-talk and drives neuroinflammation in mouse ischemic stroke
Acta Pharmacologica Sinica (2025)
-
BNIP3-mediated mitophagy attenuates hypoxic–ischemic brain damage in neonatal rats by inhibiting ferroptosis through P62–KEAP1–NRF2 pathway activation to maintain iron and redox homeostasis
Acta Pharmacologica Sinica (2025)
-
In defence of ferroptosis
Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy (2025)
-
Edaravone dextranol alleviates ferroptosis, Cuproptosis, and blood-brain barrier damage after acute cerebral infarction
Metabolic Brain Disease (2025)
-
NADH intraperitoneal injection prevents massive pancreatic beta cell destruction in a streptozotocin-induced diabetes in rats
Histochemistry and Cell Biology (2024)