Laboratory of Nutrition, Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Tohoku University, 468-1 Aramaki Aza Aoba, Aoba-ku, Sendai 980-8572, Japan.
R&D, Business Strategy, Healthcare SBU, Daicel Corporation, 2-18-1, Konan, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-8230, Japan.
Molecules. 2021 Mar 18;26(6):1697. doi: 10.3390/molecules26061697.
Hypogonadism, associated with low levels of testosterone synthesis, has been implicated in several diseases. Recently, the quest for natural alternatives to prevent and treat hypogonadism has gained increasing research interest. To this end, the present study explored the effect of -allyl cysteine (SAC), a characteristic organosulfur compound in aged-garlic extract, on testosterone production. SAC was administered at 50 mg/kg body weight intraperitoneally into 7-week-old BALB/c male mice in a single-dose experiment. Plasma levels of testosterone and luteinizing hormone (LH) and testis levels of proteins involved in steroidogenesis were measured by enzymatic immunoassay and Western blot, respectively. In addition, mouse testis-derived I-10 cells were also used to investigate the effect of SAC on steroidogenesis. In the animal experiment, SAC significantly elevated testosterone levels in both the plasma and the testis without changing the LH level in plasma and increased phosphorylated protein kinase A (p-PKA) levels. Similar results were also observed in I-10 cells. The findings demonstrating the increasing effect of SAC on p-PKA and mRNA levels of suggest that SAC increases the testosterone level by activating the PKA pathway and could be a potential target for hypogonadism therapeutics.
性腺功能减退症与睾丸酮合成水平降低有关，它与多种疾病相关。最近，人们对寻找天然替代品以预防和治疗性腺功能减退症的兴趣日益增加。为此，本研究探讨了 - 烯丙基半胱氨酸（SAC）对睾丸酮生成的影响。SAC 以 50mg/kg 体重的剂量经腹腔单次给药至 7 周龄 BALB/c 雄性小鼠。采用酶免疫测定法和 Western blot 分别测定血浆中睾丸酮和促黄体生成素（LH）的水平以及参与甾体生成的蛋白质在睾丸中的水平。此外，还使用源自小鼠睾丸的 I-10 细胞来研究 SAC 对甾体生成的影响。在动物实验中，SAC 显著增加了血浆和睾丸中的睾丸酮水平，而不改变血浆中 LH 的水平，并增加了磷酸化蛋白激酶 A（p-PKA）的水平。在 I-10 细胞中也观察到了类似的结果。这些研究结果表明，SAC 增加了 p-PKA 和 的 mRNA 水平，表明 SAC 通过激活 PKA 通路增加了睾丸酮的水平，它可能成为治疗性腺功能减退症的潜在靶点。
