Zhengzheng Shi and colleagues on the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences (IMS) in Japan report the results of a typical herbal treatment on colitis, considered one of two conditions that comprise inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Published in Frontiers in Immunology, the study shows that DKT—a typical formula containing ginger, pepper, ginseng, and maltose—reduced the severity of colitis in lab mice by stopping the characteristic imbalance in gut microbes and by increasing levels of immune cells within the colon that fight inflammation.

Colitis is a chronic inflammation of the colon, characterised by an imbalance in gut bacteria and an abnormal immune response. Prevalence has doubled over the past 20 years, and it’s currently a worldwide health concern, particularly in Europe and North America. Although treatments are quite a few, they’re only partially effective. This has led some researchers to take a better have a look at traditional herbal medicines that originated in China, and are actually commonly utilized in Japan and other Asian countries.

Daikenchuto (DKT) is a formula containing specific amounts of ginger, pepper, ginseng, and maltose, and is considered one of 148 herbal medicines called Kampo, which have been developed in Japan and are sometimes prescribed by doctors to treat a wide range of illnesses. Previous research has hinted that DKT is likely to be useful for treating colitis, but evidence, particularly on the molecular level, has been lacking. Thus, Shi and the team of researchers at RIKEN IMS led by Naoko Satoh-Takayama conducted an in depth examination of its effects on a mouse model of colitis.

Colitis was induced in mice using dextran sodium sulfate, which is toxic to the cells that line the colon. When these mice got DKT, their body weights remained normal, they usually had lower clinical scores for colitis. Additional evaluation revealed much less damage to the cells lining the colon. Having thus shown that DKT does indeed help protect against colitis, the researchers proceeded to investigate the gut microbiome of the mice and expression levels of anti-inflammatory immune cells.

Gut microbiomes contain quite a few bacteria and fungi that aid in digestion and help the immune system. Colitis is related to an imbalance in these gut microbiota, and evaluation showed that a family of lactic acid bacteria were depleted within the colitic mice of this study. Also depleted was considered one of their metabolites, a short-chain fatty acid called propionate. Treating the model mice with DKT restored much of those missing bacteria—particularly those from the genus Lactobacillus—and levels of propionate were normal.

Colitis can be related to an abnormal immune response that causes the characteristic intestinal inflammation. When the team checked out innate intestinal immune cells, they found that levels of a sort called ILC3 were lower within the untreated colitic mice than within the DKT-treated colonic mice, and that mice engineered to lack ILC3 suffered more and will not profit from DKT treatment. Which means ILC3s are critical for safeguarding against colitis and that DKT works by interacting with them. Lastly, qPCR evaluation indicated that these vital immune cells had receptors for propionate, called GPR43, on their surface.

Daikenchuto is usually prescribed to forestall and treat gastrointestinal diseases, in addition to for reducing intestinal obstruction after colorectal cancer surgery. Here we have now shown that it could possibly also alleviate intestinal diseases like colitis by rebalancing Lactobacillus levels within the gut microbiome. This likely helps reduce inflammatory immune responses by promoting the activity of type 3 innate lymphoid cells.”

Naoko Satoh-Takayama, RIKEN

Source:

Journal reference:

Shi, Z., et al. (2022) A Japanese Herbal Formula, Daikenchuto, Alleviates Experimental Colitis by Reshaping Microbial Profiles and Enhancing Group 3 Innate Lymphoid Cells. Frontiers in Immunology. doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2022.903459.