Discovery of neural protective drugs from ginseng

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease which is caused by the death of dopamine neuronal cells in the substantia nigra. In today's world, there is yet to be promising drugs for the prevention and treatment of PD and hence, there is a rising urgent need for exploration of alternatives. Studies have been done on medicinal herbs and they have suggested that medicinal herbs may be effective in treating PD. Much interest has been focused on the neurotrophic and neuroprotective effects of ginseng. However, it has not been fully established which type and specific compound of ginseng can offer the strongest neuroprotective ability. In this project, media supplemented with ginseng extracts and ginsenosides were used to pretreat rat pheochromocytoma (PC-12) cells. Methyl-4-phenyl-pyridine ion (MPP⁺) was used to illustrate PD by causing the loss of dopaminergic PC-12 cells. (3-(4, 5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2, 5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide) (MTT) assay was used to determine PC-12 cell viability. The cell viability has a direct correlation with the neural protective effects of the ginseng extracts and ginsenosides. From the MTT assay, water extract American ginseng, 95% ethanol extract sulphur fumigated white ginseng and ginsensoide Ro were found to offer the strongest neuroprotective effects. Factors like quality of ginsenosides present in ginseng extracts, number of OH side groups and isomerism in ginsenosides were found to affect their neuroprotective ability. The ginseng extracts and ginsenosides showed significant neuroprotective potentials and provide promise for further research and usage.Bachelor of Engineering (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering