Food-Derived Antioxidant Polysaccharides and Their Pharmacological Potential in Neurodegenerative Diseases

Abstract

Oxidative stress is known to impair architecture and function of cells, which may lead to various chronic diseases, and therefore therapeutic and nutritional interventions to reduce oxidative damages represent a viable strategy in the amelioration of oxidative stress-related disorders, including neurodegenerative diseases. Over the past decade, a variety of natural polysaccharides from functional and medicinal foods have attracted great interest due to their antioxidant functions such as scavenging free radicals and reducing oxidative damages. Interestingly, these antioxidant polysaccharides are also found to attenuate neuronal damages and alleviate cognitive and motor decline in a range of neurodegenerative models. It has recently been established that the neuroprotective mechanisms of polysaccharides are related to oxidative stress-related pathways, including mitochondrial function, antioxidant defense system and pathogenic protein aggregation. Here, we first summarize the current status of antioxidant function of food-derived polysaccharides and then attempt to appraise their anti-neurodegeneration activities.

Keywords: antioxidant; inflammatory stress; neurodegeneration; oxidative stress; polysaccharide; proteotoxic stress.

Figure 1

Pharmacological intervention of neurodegeneration by food-derived antioxidant polysaccharides. A number of extrinsic and intrinsic stresses such as proteotoxic stress, inflammatory stress and chemical interruption can stimulate oxidative stress through impairing the function of antioxidant system and mitochondria. Increase of oxidative stress can promote pathogenic protein aggregation and inflammation, eventually leading to neuronal injury, death and dysfunction via multiple biochemical pathways (solid line). However, food-derived antioxidant polysaccharides can exert beneficial effects to suppress neurodegeneration via attenuating oxidative, inflammatory and proteotoxic stresses and regulating stress-related signaling (dashed line).