Effects of Petunidin-3-Glucoside on the Cognitive Functions in Caenorhabditis Elegans under Glyphosate and Ethanol Stressors

Abstract

Learning and memory are critical cognitive functions for the survival of organisms in response to environmental change. There is a growing interest in compounds that can serve as potential cognitive enhancers such as anthocyanins. Petudinin-3-glucoside (P3G) is an aglycone form of anthocyanin typically present in duhat, soybean, grapes, and berries. Caenorhabditis elegans is widely used as a model organism for cognitive function due to its simplicity of cultivation, short life cycle, well-studied genetics, and relatively simple nervous system. This study investigated the effect of P3G on cognitive function using C. elegans as an in vivo model under the presence of stress conditions (glyphosate and ethanol). Age-synchronized young adult worms were supplemented with various concentrations (6.25, 12.5, and 25 μg/mL) of P3G prior to massed training and chemotaxis assays. In groups without stressors, the learning indices of P3G-supplemented C. elegans increased at various time points (0, 1, and 2 h). In the groups with stressors, there was an observable increase in the learning index of P3G-supplemented C. elegans upon acute ethanol exposure (6.25, 12.5, and 25 μg/mL), and glyphosate exposure (6.25 μg/mL). However, our findings exhibited no significant difference among all treatment groups. Taken together, P3G was not able to significantly increase the learning and short-term memory of C. elegans under the absence and presence of stressors.