Research progress on the anti-aging effect of polysaccharides of traditional Chinese medicine: Using Caenorhabditis elegans as an animal model

Abstract

With the growing elderly population and increasing incidence of various aging-related diseases, the scientific community is faced with an urgent challenge to identify natural anti-aging agents. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) polysaccharides have been proven to have good anti-aging activities. This article reviews the literature on the anti-aging pathways of traditional Chinese medicine polysaccharides applied to Caenorhabditis elegans models in the past decade. In our study, we found that 45 TCM polysaccharides from 28 genera and 26 families could delay the aging process of C. elegans. Traditional Chinese medicine polysaccharides delay the aging of C. elegans mainly by anti-oxidative stress, eliminating free radicals, repairing DNA damage, and insulin/insulin-like growth factor signaling pathway (IIS signaling pathway). In addition, an increasing number of traditional Chinese medicine polysaccharides have been found to prolong the lifespan of C. elegans by reducing inflammation, regulating intestinal flora, and affecting immune cell function. In this paper, C. elegans was used as an animal model to clarify the anti-aging pathway of traditional Chinese medicine polysaccharides, so as to provide theoretical guidance for future research and clinical experiments on the anti-aging effect of traditional Chinese medicine polysaccharides.