An-Najah Staff

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Lavandula dentata L. and Origanum syriacum L. essential oils have numerous health benefits and properties, such as possessing

common components with a variant degree of depressive actions in the central nervous system. We investigated the depressive

property of these oils on AMPA receptors, which are responsible for most of the fast-excitatory neurotransmission in the CNS

and play a critical role in synaptic plasticity. Since excessive activation of AMPARs has been linked to neurotoxicity leading to

various pathologies, we hypothesize that these oils have a neuroprotective role by acting directly on the kinetics of AMPARs. Using

Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC/MS) and patch-clamp electrophysiology, the essential oils of L. dentata flowers and

O. syriacum leaves were characterized and the whole cell currents were measured with and without the administration of the

oils onto HEK293 cells. The current study results showed that the biophysical properties of AMPA receptor subunits showed a

decrease in desensitization rate of GluA1 and GluA2 homomers, using O. syriacum, while administering L. dentata oil decreased

the desensitization rate of GluA1 and GluA2 homomers, as well as GluA1/2 heteromers. As for the deactivation rate, both oils

slowed the deactivation kinetics of all AMPA receptor subunits. Intriguingly, between the two oils, the effect of desensitization and

deactivation was of a greater significance for L. dentata oil than O. syriacum. Our data suggest that the two oils contain components

that are essential to identify, as those active components underlie the oils’ neuronal depressive properties reported, and to extract

them to synthesize a potent neuroprotective drug to treat neurological diseases potentially.

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