Traditional Chinese medicine polysaccharides in the treatment of Parkinson's disease and its mechanism / 中国药理学与毒理学杂志

ABSTRACT

Parkinson's disease(PD)is a degenera-tive disease of the central nervous system characterized by the loss of dopamine(DA)neurons in the dense sub-stantia nigra and the depletion of DA neurons.Clinically,the treatment of PD is mainly supplementing dopamine deficiency or using DA receptor agonists,but these drugs can only alleviate the symptoms of PD patients,but cannot prevent neuronal loss and delay disease progres-sion.Natural bioactive polysaccharides have the advan-tages of multi-target,low toxicity and synergistic effect,and have great potential in the prevention and treatment of PD.Numerous studies have shown that polysaccha-rides can be involved in neuronal protection and preven-tion of neurodegenerative diseases through mechanisms such as oxidative stress,reducing neuroinflammation,and inhibiting anti-apoptosis.①Anti-oxidative stress.Oxi-dative stress is caused by increased reactive oxygen spe-cies(ROS)products and weakened antioxidant capacity,resulting in destruction of lipids,proteins,and DNA.Oxi-dative stress-induced mitochondrial dysfunction is thought to be an important cause of DA neuronal loss in PD mice.Polysaccharides reduce the damage of DA neurons in the substantia nigra by increasing the activity of antioxidant enzymes and inhibiting the formation of reactive oxygen species.② Reduce neuroinflammation.Neuroinflamma-tory response is the main causative factor of neurodegener-ation,microglia are innate immune cells present in the central nervous system,and their continuous activation is a key link in central nervous system neuroinflammation.Polysaccharides can regulate the expression of inflamma-somes,reduce the levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines and cytotoxic factors,inhibit the excessive activation of microglia,reduce PD neuroinflammatory damage,and then exert neuroprotective effects.③ Inhibiting apopto-sis.Apoptosis(APO)is the process of cell death caused by the activation of cell death procedures by various fac-tors.During the pathogenesis of PD,due to changes in the internal and external environment of DA neurons,some apoptosis-related genes cause DA neuronal death by regulating cell death signaling pathways.Polysaccha-rides can reduce the Bax/Bcl2 ratio,weaken the activa-tion of caspase-related proteins,improve the viability of PC12 cells,reduce apoptosis,and protect the activity of dopamine neurons.In summary,traditional Chinese med-icine polysaccharides can effectively treat and improve PD,and its mechanism of action involves anti-oxidative stress,reducing neuroinflammation and apoptosis.There-fore,traditional Chinese medicine polysaccharides have great development potential in the field of medicine and health.