The purpose of this study is to understand the neuroprotective mechanism of hypoxic preconditioning (HPC) on mouse hippocampus. ICR mice were divided into the control group, hypoxia group and HPC group. Western Blot was used to detect the protein expression of TSC1, mTOR, phosphorylated mTOR and LC3 to ascertain whether TSC1/mTOR/autophagy pathway was involved in the neuroprotective effect of HPC on mice hippocampus. In order to further study the role of TSC1 in hypoxia, TSC1 pEGFP was transfected into HT22 cells in vitro. After hypoxia stimulation, the viability of cells was detected by MTS assay to determine the neuroprotective effect of TSC1 under hypoxia. Results showed that HPC increased the hypoxia tolerance time of mice, the expression of TSC1 protein increased and the expression of P-mTOR protein decreased in HPC group compared with those in the control group, and that the cell viability of TSC1-peGFP plasmid group was increased compared with that in the vector group. The results suggested that HPC played the neuroprotective role in the hippocampus of mice by activating autophagy through up-regulating the expression of TSC1 while down-regulating mTOR phosphorylation level.

hypoxic preconditioning  /  TSC1  /  mTOR  /  autophagy  /  neuroprotection