Quercetin Inhibits Peripheral and Spinal Cord Nociceptive Mechanisms to Reduce Intense Acute Swimming-Induced Muscle Pain in Mice.

Borghi, Sergio M; Pinho-Ribeiro, Felipe A; Fattori, Victor; Bussmann, Allan J C; Vignoli, Josiane A; Camilios-Neto, Doumit; Casagrande, Rubia; Verri, Waldiceu A · PLoS One · 2016

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

The present study aimed to evaluate the effects of the flavonoid quercetin (3,3´,4´,5,7-pentahydroxyflavone) in a mice model of intense acute swimming-induced muscle pain, which resembles delayed onset muscle soreness. Quercetin intraperitoneal (i.p.) treatment dose-dependently reduced muscle mechanical hyperalgesia. Quercetin inhibited myeloperoxidase (MPO) and N-acetyl-β-D- glucosaminidase (NAG) activities, cytokine production, oxidative stress, cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) and gp91phox mRNA expression and muscle injury (creatinine kinase [CK] blood levels and myoblast determination protein [MyoD] mRNA expression) as well as inhibited NFκB activation and induced Nrf2 and HO-1 mRNA expression in the soleus muscle. Beyond inhibiting those peripheral effects, quercetin also inhibited spinal cord cytokine production, oxidative stress and glial cells activation (glial fibrillary acidic protein [GFAP] and ionized calcium-binding adapter molecule 1 [Iba-1] mRNA expression). Concluding, the present data demonstrate that quercetin is a potential molecule for the treatment of muscle pain conditions related to unaccustomed exercise.

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