Department of Food Science and Nutrients, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China.
Research Centre for Chinese Medicine Innovation, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China.
Curr Osteoporos Rep. 2024 Dec;22(6):497-501. doi: 10.1007/s11914-024-00883-1. Epub 2024 Sep 5.
Traditional Chinese Medicine has a unique system to diagnose and treat bone diseases with symptoms similar to those of osteoporosis. Sambucus williamsii Hance (SWH), a folk medicine in northern part of China for fractures healing and pain alleviation, has been demonstrated to exert bone anabolic effects in ovariectomized (OVX) rat and mice models in our previous studies. Lignans were identified to be the main bioactive fractions of SWH. However, pharmacokinetics study showed that the levels of lignan were too low to be detected in rat serum even upon taking 15 times of the effective dose of lignan-rich fraction from SWH. We hypothesize that lignans from SWH might exert its bone protective effect via the gut microbiome.
Our study revealed that the lignan-rich fraction of SWH did not influence the diversity of gut microbiota in OVX rats, but significantly increased the abundance of a few phyla, in particular, the restoration of the abundance of several genera that was directly correlated with bone mineral density (BMD). In addition, a subsequent metabolomic study indicated that serotonin, a neurotransmitter synthesized in the intestine and influenced by gut microbiota, may be involved in mediating the bone protective action of the lignans. Gut-derived serotonin is thought to inhibit bone growth. Based on this finding, several inhibitors that suppressed the synthesis of serotonin were identified from the lignans of SWH. Our studies suggested that microbiome is an indispensable factor for lignans derived from S. willimasii to exert bone beneficial effects.
中医药有其独特的体系来诊断和治疗与骨质疏松症相似的骨骼疾病。黑果接骨木（Sambucus williamsii Hance，SWH）是中国北方民间用于骨折愈合和止痛的药物，我们之前的研究表明，它对去卵巢大鼠和小鼠模型具有骨合成作用。木脂素被鉴定为 SWH 的主要生物活性成分。然而，药代动力学研究表明，即使服用 SWH 木脂素丰富部分的有效剂量的 15 倍，大鼠血清中的木脂素水平也低到无法检测。我们假设 SWH 的木脂素可能通过肠道微生物群发挥其保护骨骼的作用。
我们的研究表明，SWH 的木脂素丰富部分不会影响去卵巢大鼠肠道微生物群的多样性，但显著增加了几个门的丰度，特别是与骨密度（BMD）直接相关的几个属的丰度的恢复。此外，随后的代谢组学研究表明，血清素，一种在肠道中合成并受肠道微生物群影响的神经递质，可能参与介导木脂素的保护骨骼作用。肠道衍生的血清素被认为会抑制骨骼生长。基于这一发现，从 SWH 的木脂素中鉴定出几种抑制血清素合成的抑制剂。我们的研究表明，微生物群是 SWH 衍生的木脂素发挥骨骼有益作用所必需的因素。
