Dietary Supplement of Anoectochilus roxburghii (Wall.) Lindl. Polysaccharides Ameliorates Cognitive Dysfunction Induced by High Fat Diet via "Gut-Brain" Axis

Drug Des Devel Ther. 2022 Jun 20:16:1931-1945. doi: 10.2147/DDDT.S356934. eCollection 2022.

Abstract

Purpose: Anoectochilus roxburghii (Wall.) Lindl. polysaccharides (ARPs) have been reported to exhibit multiple pharmacological activities including anti-inflammatory and anti-hyperglycemia. This study aims to investigate the effect of ARPs on cognitive dysfunction induced by high fat diet (HFD).

Methods: Six-week-old male mice were treated with ARPs by dietary supplementation for 14 weeks. The effect of ARPs on cognitive function was determined by assessing the changes in spatial learning and memory ability, neurotrophic factors in hippocampus, inflammatory parameters, intestinal barrier integrity, and gut microbiota.

Results: ARPs supplementation can effectively ameliorate cognitive dysfunction, decrease the phosphorylation levels of Tau protein in hippocampus. Meanwhile, the increased body weight, plasma glucose, total cholesterol, inflammatory factors induced by HFD were abolished by ARPs treatment. Furthermore, ARPs treatment restored the intestinal epithelial barrier as evidenced by upregulation of intestinal tight junction proteins. Additionally, ARPs supplementation significantly decreased the relative abundance of several bacteria genus such as Parabacteroides, which may play regulatory roles in cognitive function.

Conclusion: These results suggest that ARPs might be a promising strategy for the treatment of cognitive dysfunction induced by HFD. Mechanistically, alleviation of cognitive dysfunction by ARPs might be associated with the "gut-brain" axis.

Keywords: Anoectochilus roxburghii (Wall.) Lindl. polysaccharides; cognitive dysfunction; diet-induced-obesity; gut microbiota; “gut-brain” axis.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Brain
  • Cognitive Dysfunction* / drug therapy
  • Diet, High-Fat
  • Dietary Supplements
  • Male
  • Mice
  • Mice, Inbred C57BL
  • Orchidaceae*
  • Polysaccharides / pharmacology
  • Polysaccharides / therapeutic use

Substances

  • Polysaccharides

Grants and funding

This study was supported by research funding from the Science and Technology Planning Project of Sichuan Province (No.2019YFS0180 to H.Y.), Doctoral Research Initiation Fund of Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University (No.21032 to Y.X.), the Collaborative Project of Luzhou Government and Southwest Medical University (2018LZXNYD-PT02 to Y.Y.), and The Foundation for Young Scholars of Southwest Medical University (2019-ZQN-125, 2020-ZQN-151).