Neuroprotective effects of extra virgin oils: a multidisciplinary approach

Neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease are the largest growing area of neurological research still in search of an effective therapy. Virgin olive oil is a rich source of phenolic compounds that have been demonstrated to interfere with different mechanisms involved in neurodegenerative disorders. Nonetheless the chemical composition of the oils could be influenced by the cultivar, the growing area, the ripening of the fruit, and the processing and preservation of the oil. Aim of this research was to evaluate the neuroprotective effect of four different virgin olive oil extracts from three cultivars, against neurodegeneration in a human neuroblastoma cell line (SH-SY5Y) differentiate with retinoic acid. The different olive oil extracts were characterized for their content in phenols and polyphenols by HPLC. SH-SY5Ycells treated with different oil extracts (1-10 µg/mL), showed significantly to increase cell viability and to reduce GSH level. To study the effect of oil components on SH-SY5Yproteome, cellular protein expression was analyzed through 2DE, before and after treatment at 10ug/ml concentration of virgin oil extracts. Same spots analysis suggested that all extracts induced a change of protein spots expression when compared with control, and eleven differentially expressed spots resulted common to all cultivars. Spots of interest were cut, trypsin digested and resulting peptides are processing for MS/MS identification. Our findings support the idea that virgin olive oil might have a beneficial health effect in counteracting neurodegeneration and these effects in part correlate to the specific pattern of olive oil components.