{"doi":"10.3390/ph18121892","title":"Lemon Juice-Assisted Green Extraction of Strawberry Enhances Neuroprotective Phytochemicals: Insights into Alzheimer’s-Related Pathways","abstract":"Background/Objective: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative condition characterized by oxidative stress, neuroinflammation, amyloidogenesis, and tau-related pathology. This study investigated the macronutrient and phytochemical composition of strawberry (S), lemon (L), and lemon juice-assisted strawberry (S/L) extracts and evaluated their neuroprotective efficacy relative to selenium (Se) in an aluminum chloride (AlCl3)-induced rat model of AD. Methods: Macronutrients and phenolics were quantified in S, L, and S/L, and the extracts were profiled using high-performance liquid chromatography and electrospray ionization tandem mass-spectrometry. Male Sprague–Dawley rats received AlCl3 with or without S, L, S/L, or Se, and their cognitive performance was assessed using the Morris water maze, Y-maze, and conditioned avoidance tests. Markers of oxidative status, inflammation, cholinergic function, apoptotic signaling, and Wnt3/β-catenin pathway activity were quantified in the brain tissue, and cortico-hippocampal morphology was examined. Results: The S/L extract showed the highest carbohydrate, protein, and lipid content. The total phenolic content was highest in S/L (60.46 mg gallic acid equivalents/g), followed by L (55.08) and S (44.75), with S/L also being the richest in gallic, ellagic, and chlorogenic acids. S/L attenuated AlCl3-induced cognitive deficits, restored antioxidant status, suppressed neuroinflammation, improved cholinergic indices, modulated apoptotic signaling, and downregulated amyloidogenic and NLRP3 inflammasome markers, consistent with histological evidence of neuronal preservation. Conclusions: Lemon juice-assisted extraction enhanced the macronutrient and phenolic richness and multitarget neuroprotection of strawberries. S/L co-extracts represent promising functional food–derived adjuvants for AD management and support integrative compositional–mechanistic profiling to optimize natural product–based interventions.","journal":"Pharmaceuticals","year":2025,"id":585251,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9549,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1498621,"name":"Jilan A. Nazeam","orcid":"0000-0003-1149-8222","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1498622,"name":"Karema Abu‐Elfotuh","orcid":"0000-0003-3870-3206","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1498623,"name":"Ayah M. H. Gowifel","orcid":"0000-0003-1738-7101","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1498624,"name":"Ahmed M. Atwa","orcid":"0000-0001-8580-4179","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1251129,"name":"Ehsan Khedre Mohamed","orcid":"0000-0003-4956-1522","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1498625,"name":"Ahmed M. Hamdan","orcid":"0000-0003-4930-792X","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1392966,"name":"Reema Almotairi","orcid":"0000-0002-1432-460X","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1498626,"name":"Amira M. Hamdan","orcid":"0000-0002-7220-3646","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1498627,"name":"Samir M. Osman","orcid":"0000-0001-8275-732X","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1498628,"name":"Hala M. El-Hefnawy","orcid":"0000-0002-2817-7751","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1499062,"name":"Youssef Mohamed Sharaf","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":104,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:59:20.067334Z","pmid":"41471381","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}