Teng Jie, Zhou Wen, Zeng Zhen, Zhao Wenfang, Huang Yahui, Zhang Xu
Department of Tea Sciences, College of Horticulture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, People's Republic of China.
Food Funct. 2017 Sep 20;8(9):3311-3318. doi: 10.1039/c7fo01045a.
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 GABA 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 GABA receptor α1 subunit, thus ameliorating depression.
γ-氨基丁酸（GABA）绿茶是一种特殊的绿茶，其GABA含量较高。本研究的目的是分析绿茶在厌氧处理过程中品质成分的变化，并研究绿茶中所含GABA提取物是否能预防或改善动物的抑郁状态。结果表明，厌氧处理后绿茶中的GABA含量显著增加。茶多糖、总游离氨基酸和水提取物的含量也增加了，而茶多酚含量则降低了。更重要的是，GABA绿茶提取物可通过强迫游泳试验（FST）、悬尾试验（TST）、GABA受体的mRNA和蛋白表达水平，缓解小鼠的抑郁和绝望环境应激。因此，这些结果表明，GABA绿茶可能对预防和缓解抑郁具有健康作用，并且它通过上调GABA受体α1亚基的表达作用于小鼠大脑皮层的GABA能神经传递，从而改善抑郁症状。
