Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative disease associated with aging, which is characterized by the α-synuclein protein aggregation and dopaminergic neurons loss. Tea seed oil is common used edible oil in East Asia, which is mainly from the seeds of Camellia oleifera and Camellia tenuifolia. C. tenuifolia is the native species in Taiwan but with limited sufficient scientific evidence to support the beneficial effects from its seed oil. In this study, Caenorhabditis elegans was used as an in vivo model organism to investigate the anti- Parkinson’s disease effects of β-amyrin from C. tenuifolia seed oil. The results showed that C. tenuifolia seed oil MeOH extract significantly increased the antioxidant activity in C. elegans under juglone-induced oxidative stress. In addition, the bioactive compound, β-amyrin, was further identified in C. tenuifolia seed oil MeOH extract. Morerover, results showed that β-amyrin significantly rescued the locomotive behaviors including head thrashing and body bending patterns decline in Parkinsonian C. elegans model NL5901 strain (expressing α-synuclein protein) compared to wild-type N2 strain. Therefore, our results suggested that β-amyrin and tea seed oil are worth further studying for the nutraceuticals or pharmaceutical applications on Parkinson’s disease treatment.

Anti-Parkinsonian effects of β-amyrin of tea seed oil from Camellia tenuifolia in Caenorhabditis elegans

256th National Meeting (2018)

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