Oral Troxerutin Alleviates Depression Symptoms in Mice by Modulating Gut Microbiota and Microbial Metabolism.

SCOPE: A growing body of evidence suggests that the harmful gut microbiota in depression patients can play a role in the progression of depression. There is limited research on troxerutin's impact on the central nervous system (CNS), especially in depression. The study finds that troxerutin effectively alleviates depression and anxiety-like behavior in mice by increasing the abundance of beneficial bacteria like Lactobacillus and Firmicutes while decreasing the abundance of harmful bacteria like Proteobacteria, Bacteroides, and Actinobacteria in the gut. Furthermore, the research reveals that troxerutin regulates various metabolic pathways in mice, including nucleotide metabolism, caffeine metabolism, purine metabolism, arginine biosynthesis, histidine metabolism, 2-oxocarboxylic acid metabolism, biosynthesis of amino acids, glycine, serine and threonine metabolism, and Arginine and proline metabolism. CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, the study provides compelling evidence for the antidepressant efficacy of troxerutin. Through the investigation of the role of intestinal microorganisms and metabolites, the study identifies these factors as key players in troxerutin's ability to prevent depression. Troxerutin achieves its neuroprotective effects and effectively prevents depression and anxiety by modulating the abundance of gut microbiota, including Proteobacteria, Bacteroides, and Actinobacteria, as well as regulating metabolites such as creatine.

Ferulic acid and feruloylated oligosaccharides alleviate anxiety and depression symptom via regulating gut microbiome and microbial metabolism.

Incidence of anxiety and depression has been surging in recent years, causing unignorable mental health crisis across the globe. Mounting studies demonstrated that overgrowth of detrimental gut microbes is driving the development of anxiety and depression. Our previous studies suggested that ferulic acid (FA) and feruloylated oligosaccharides (FOs) were potent in regulating gut microbiome and microbial metabolism in a variety of disease settings, including neuroinflammation. Given the increasing evidence solidifying the role of gut-brain axis in neurological disorders, we here investigated the therapeutic potential of FA and FOs in anxiety and depression. In present study we found that FA and FOs effectively alleviated anxiety and depression-like behavior in mice, while increasing the abundance of Firmicutes, Solibacillus, Acinetobacter and Arthrobacter, and decreasing the abundance of Parabacteroides, Oscollospira and Rummeliibacillus. In addition, FA and FOs were efficacious in enhancing phenylalanine, tyrosine and tryptophan biosynthesis, phenylalanine and caffeine metabolism in mice having depression. Our results validated FA and FOs as effective nutrition to prevent anxiety and depression, as well as provided mechanistic insight into their anti-anxiety and anti-depression function. We suggested that FOs mitigated the symptom of depression in mice potentially via changing gut microbiome structure and microbial metabolism.

Simotang Alleviates the Gastrointestinal Side Effects of Chemotherapy by Altering Gut Microbiota.

Simotang oral liquid (SMT) is a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) consisting of four natural plants and is used to alleviate gastrointestinal side effects after chemotherapy and functional dyspepsia (FD). However, the mechanism by which SMT helps cure these gastrointestinal diseases is still unknown. Here, we discovered that SMT could alleviate gastrointestinal side effects after chemotherapy by altering gut microbiota. C57BL/6J mice were treated with cisplatin (DDP) and SMT, and biological samples were collected. Pathological changes in the small intestine were observed, and the intestinal injury score was assessed. The expression levels of the inflammatory factors IL-1ß and IL-6 and the adhesive factors Occludin and ZO-1 in mouse blood or small intestine tissue were also detected. Moreover, the gut microbiota was analyzed by high-throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA amplicons. SMT was found to effectively reduce gastrointestinal mucositis after DDP injection, which lowered inflammation and tightened the intestinal epithelial cells. Gut microbiota analysis showed that the abundance of the anti-inflammatory microbiota was downregulated and that the inflammatory microbiota was upregulated in DDP-treated mice. SMT upregulated anti-inflammatory and anticancer microbiota abundance, while the inflammatory microbiota was downregulated. An antibiotic cocktail (ABX) was also used to delete mice gut microbiota to test the importance of gut microbiota, and we found that SMT could not alleviate gastrointestinal mucositis after DDP injection, showing that gut microbiota might be an important mediator of SMT treatment. Our study provides evidence that SMT might moderate gastrointestinal mucositis after chemotherapy by altering gut microbiota.