Oral administration of Coenzyme Q protects mice against oxidative stress and neuro-inflammation during experimental cerebral malaria.

In animal model of experimental cerebral malaria (ECM), the genesis of neuropathology is associated with oxidative stress and inflammatory mediators. There is limited progress in the development of new approaches to the treatment of cerebral malaria. Here, we tested whether oral supplementation of Coenzyme Q (CoQ) would offer protection against oxidative stress and brain associated inflammation following Plasmodium berghei ANKA (PbA) infection in C57BL/6 J mouse model. For this purpose, one group of C57BL/6 mice was used as control; second group of mice were orally supplemented with 200 mg/kg CoQ and then infected with PbA and the third group was PbA infected alone. Clinical, biochemical, immunoblot and immunological features of ECM was monitored. We observed that oral administration of CoQ for 1 month and after PbA infection was able to improve survival, significantly reduced oedema, TNF-α and MIP-1β gene expression in brain samples in PbA infected mice. The result also shows the ability of CoQ to reduce cholesterol and triglycerides lipids, levels of matrix metalloproteinases-9, angiopoietin-2 and angiopoietin-1 in the brain. In addition, CoQ was very effective in decreasing NF-κB phosphorylation. Furthermore, CoQ supplementation abrogated Malondialdehyde, and 8-OHDG and restored cellular glutathione. These results constitute the first demonstration that oral supplementation of CoQ can protect mice against PbA induced oxidative stress and neuro-inflammation usually observed in ECM. Thus, the need to study CoQ as a candidate of antioxidant and immunomodulatory molecule in ECM and testing it in clinical studies either alone or in combination with antimalaria regimens to provide insight into a potential translatable therapy.