Acidic preconditioning protects against ischemia-induced brain injury

Ischemic preconditioning protects against cerebral ischemia. Recent investigations indicated that acidic preconditioning (APC) protects against ischemia-induced cardiomyocytes injury. However, it is not clear whether APC can protect against cerebral ischemia. To address this issue, C57BL/6 mice were exposed 3 times at 10-min intervals to a normoxic atmosphere containing 20% CO2 for 5 min before being further subjected to bilateral common carotid artery occlusion. APC reversed the ischemia-induced brain injury as revealed by improved performance in passive avoidance experiments and decreased neuron loss in the hippocampal CA1 region. Consistently, both APC-treated brain slices and primary cultured neurons were more resistant to oxygen-glucose-deprivation (OGD)-induced injury, in a pH- and time-dependent manner, as revealed by reversed cell/tissue viability. In addition, the APC treatment prevented OGD-induced mitochondrial transmembrane potential loss and apoptosis, which was inhibited by the mitochondrial permeability transport pore opener atractyloside. Taken together, these findings indicated that APC protects against ischemia-induced neuronal injury. The beneficial effects may be attributed, at least in part, to decreased mitochondria-dependent neuronal apoptosis.