Quality components and antidepressant-like effects of GABA green tea

Food Funct. 2017 Sep 20;8(9):3311-3318. doi: 10.1039/c7fo01045a.

Abstract

Gamma (γ)-aminobutyric acid (GABA) green tea, with high GABA content, is a kind of special green tea. The goals of this study are to analyze the changes in quality components of green tea during anaerobic treatment, and to investigate whether or not the extract of GABA present in green tea can prevent depression or improve the depressive state of animals. Results showed that GABA content in green tea had increased significantly after anaerobic treatment. The contents of tea polysaccharides, total free amino acids, and water extracts were also increased whereas tea polyphenols were reduced. More importantly, the extract of GABA green tea could alleviate mouse depression and stress from desperate environments through the forced swim test (FST), tail suspension test (TST), mRNA and protein expression levels of GABAA receptors. Therefore, these results indicate that GABA green tea may have a health effect on prevention and alleviation of depression, and it works on the GABAergic neurotransmission of mouse cerebral cortex via up-regulating expression of the GABAA receptor α1 subunit, thus ameliorating depression.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Antidepressive Agents / administration & dosage*
  • Antidepressive Agents / chemistry
  • Camellia sinensis / chemistry*
  • Depression / drug therapy*
  • Depression / genetics
  • Depression / metabolism
  • Disease Models, Animal
  • Female
  • Hindlimb Suspension
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Mice
  • Plant Extracts / administration & dosage*
  • Plant Extracts / chemistry
  • Tea / chemistry
  • gamma-Aminobutyric Acid / administration & dosage*
  • gamma-Aminobutyric Acid / chemistry

Substances

  • Antidepressive Agents
  • Plant Extracts
  • Tea
  • gamma-Aminobutyric Acid