Ferulic acid attenuates brain microvascular endothelial cells damage caused by oxygen-glucose deprivation via punctate-mitochondria-dependent mitophagy

Ferulic acid (FA) has an important effect on scavenging free radicals, which is related to the alleviation of various neurodegenerative diseases. However, there are few studies about its effects on vascular dementia. In this study, we demonstrated the effect of FA on oxidative damage of brain microvascular endothelial cells (BMECs) which underwent oxygen-glucose deprivation (OGD) for 2h. Our data showed that FA significantly reversed the oxidative stress state of OGD-treated BMECs and reduced mitochondrial dysfunction. In further study, we found that FA upregulated the expression of LC3-II, a marker of autophagy. Besides, mitophagy was observed by transmission electron microscopy. The mechanism of FA inducing autophagy was found to be related to mitochondrial fission, according to the effects of siRNA and inhibitor of dynamin-related protein 1, which was responsible for fission. All above suggested that FA mitigated OGD-induced mitochondrial oxidative damage by punctate-mitochondria-dependent autophagy.