Russian scientists have discovered how to improve the viability of brain cells: selenium will help

Found the “gold standard” of a substance that fights hypoxia

How to increase the effectiveness of selenium added to the body in order to improve the viability of brain cells, Russian scientists came up with. Using an experimental method, they found the particle size that best penetrates cell membranes.

Representatives of five scientific organizations worked on the problem at once: Moscow State University. M. V. Lomonosov, Pushchino Scientific Center for Biological Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Nizhny Novgorod State University named after N. I. Lobachevsky, All-Russian Research Institute of Phytopathology of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the National Medical Research Center for Obstetrics, Gynecology and Perinatology named after Academician V. I. Kulakov.

Selenium is a trace element whose nanoparticles trigger the process of apoptosis (death) in tumor cells, on the one hand, and protect healthy tissue cells from death under stress, on the other. It has also been established that selenium protects brain cells from ischemia and oxygen deficiency due to the activation of calcium in them. The problem, however, was that particles of far from all sizes could interact with brain cells.

Thus, the use of nanoparticles with a diameter of less than 10 nanometers (nm) led to their short lifetime in the bloodstream and rapid elimination by the liver. Nanoparticles larger than 200 nm were also quickly removed from the blood.

Using the method of laser ablation (removal of excess substance from the surface by a laser pulse), scientists obtained selenium nanoparticles of various diameters: 50 nm, 100 nm and 400 nm. After testing them for viability (they were added to Petri dishes with nerve cells in the brain of mice), the scientists found that they all have a protective effect on them. However, selenium nanoparticles 100 nanometers in size turned out to be the most effective. It turned out that they are 38% able to increase the viability of brain cells with a lack of oxygen.

It is assumed that on the basis of these and subsequent studies, scientists will come closer to the creation of new drugs to combat brain diseases.