6-Shogaol, an Active Ingredient of Ginger, Improves Intestinal and Brain Abnormalities in Proteus Mirabilis-Induced Parkinson's Disease Mouse Model

Biomol Ther (Seoul). 2023 Jul 1;31(4):417-424. doi: 10.4062/biomolther.2023.098. Epub 2023 Jun 20.

Abstract

Parkinson's disease (PD) which has various pathological mechanisms, recently, it is attracting attention to the mechanism via microbiome-gut-brain axis. 6-Shogaol, a representative compound of ginger, have been known for improving PD phenotypes by reducing neuroinflammatory responses. In the present study, we investigated whether 6-shogaol and ginger attenuate degeneration induced by Proteus mirabilis (P. mirabilis) on the intestine and brain, simultaneously. C57BL/6J mice received P. mirabilis for 5 days. Ginger (300 mg/kg) and 6-shogaol (10 mg/kg) were treated by gavage feeding for 22 days including the period of P. mirabilis treatment. Results showed that 6-shogaol and ginger improved motor dysfunction and dopaminergic neuronal death induced by P. mirabilis treatment. In addition, they suppressed P. mirabilis-induced intestinal barrier disruption, pro-inflammatory signals such as toll-like receptor and TNF-α, and intestinal α-synuclein aggregation. Moreover, ginger and 6-shogaol significantly inhibited neuroinflammation and α-synuclein in the brain. Taken together, 6-shogaol and ginger have the potential to ameliorate PD-like motor behavior and degeneration of dopaminergic neurons induced by P. mirabilis in mice. Here, these findings are meaningful in that they provide the first experimental evidence that 6-shogaol might attenuate PD via regulating gut-brain axis.

Keywords: 6-shogaol; Microbiota-Gut-Brain axis; Parkinson’s disease; Proteus mirabilis; ginger.

Grants and funding

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This study was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea funded by the Ministry of Education [NRF-2018R1D1A1B07048099] and grants from the National Research Foundation of Korea funded by the Korean government [2022M3A9B6017813].