Ayurvedic Amalaki Rasayana promotes improved stress tolerance and thus has anti-aging effects in Drosophila melanogaster

Abstract

Amalaki Rasayana (AR) is a common Ayurvedic herbal formulation of Phyllanthus emblica fruits and some other ingredients, and is used for general good health and healthy aging. We reported it to improve life history traits and to suppress neurodegeneration as well as induced apoptosis in Drosophila. The present study examines responses of Drosophila reared on AR-supplemented food to crowding, thermal or oxidative stresses. Wild-type larvae/flies reared on AR-supplemented food survived the various cell stresses much better than those reared on control food. AR-fed mutant park13 or DJ-1 beta Delta93 (Parkinson's disease model) larvae/flies, however, showed only partial or no protection, respectively, against paraquat-induced oxidative stress, indicating essentiality of DJ-1 beta for AR-mediated oxidative stress tolerance. AR feeding reduced the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and lipid peroxidation even in aged (35-day-old) wild-type flies while enhancing superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity. We show that while Hsp70 or Hsp83 expression under normal or stress conditions was not affected by AR feeding, Hsp27 levels were elevated in AR-fed wild-type control as well as heat-shocked larvae. Therefore, besides the known anti-oxidant activity of Phyllanthus emblica fruits, dietary AR also enhances cellular levels of Hsp27. Our in vivo study on a model organism shows that AR feeding significantly improves tolerance to a variety of cell stresses through reduced ROS and lipid peroxidation on the one hand, and enhanced SOD activity and Hsp27 on the other. The resulting better homeostasis improves life span and quality of organism's life.

Molecular basis for efficacy of Guduchi and Madhuyashti feeding on different environmental stressors in Drosophila

“…Apparently, exposure of the Guduchi or Madhuyashti fed larvae to paraquat or crowding stress further enhances ROS levels which cannot be effectively neutralized making them more sensitive to crowding or paraquat stress (Gupta et al 2007;Singh et al 2009). It may be noted in this context that feeding of Drosophila larvae on Ayurvedic Rasa-Sindoor (a mercury and sulfur-based sublimate preparation) supplemented food was also reported to significantly elevate theormo-tolerance but make the larvae more sensitive to oxidative stress (Dwivedi and Lakhotia, 2016).…”

“…Four-day-old flies (50 males and 50 females) were kept in food vials (2.5 cm diameter, 9.8 cm length) containing 5 ml of the respective food medium as per their earlier growth. The cotton plug was placed at a distance of 9 cm, 6 cm, or 3 cm from food surface reducing the space for the flies leading to low crowding (LC), medium crowding (MC), or high crowding (HC) conditions, respectively (Dwivedi and Lakhotia 2016). The vials were changed every day and the number of flies surviving each day was counted till all the flies were dead.…”

“…Western blots of electrophoretically separated total proteins from late third instar larvae fed on regular food or either of the formulation-supplemented food, and subjected to desired experimental condition (with/without HS), were immunostained with the 7Fb rat anti-Hsp70 (at 1:1000 dilution; Velazquez and Lindquist 1984;Dwivedi and Lakhotia 2016) and mouse anti-β-tubulin (E7, 1:200 dilution, DSHB) as described earlier (Singh and Lakhotia 2016). The primary antibody binding was detected using alkaline phosphatase conjugated anti-rat or anti-mouse IgG (Bangalore Genei, India) secondary antibody, respectively.…”

<i>Emblica officinalis</i> Gaertn. (<i>Amalaki</i>): A Natural Herbal Remedy to Enhance Cardiorespiratory Fitness in <i>Ayurveda</i> - An <i>In Silico</i> Molecular Docking Approach

“…Ayurveda medications like Chyavanaprash, Amalaki, Shatavari, Ashwagandha, and Arjuna are used for enhancing CRF. Ayurveda preparations like Chyavanaprash, Amalaki rasayana, and Ratnaprash contain Amalaki as the key ingredient and are proven to improve performance, stamina and cardiorespiratory endurance [6][7][8][9] . Several studies have been conducted on the effect of Amalaki and its combination in sports medicine especially as a natural performance enhancer.…”

Beneficial effects of two Ayurvedic formulations, Saraswata Ghrita and Kalyanaka Ghrita on survival and on toxic aggregates in Drosophila models of Huntington’s and Alzheimer’s disease

“…In this study, we examined effects of dietary administration of two Ayurvedic ghrita preparations, viz., Saraswata and Kalyanaka ghritas on the fruit fly model, using wild type and transgenic strains showing HD and AD symptoms because of targeted expression of respective mutant transgene. Earlier studies in our laboratory (Dwivedi et al 2012(Dwivedi et al , 2013(Dwivedi et al , 2015Dwivedi and Lakhotia 2016;Tiwari et al 2017 have established efficacy of dietary administration of Ayurvedic Rasayanas in flies as well as mice. When fed at 0.05% (weight/volume) concentration, neither KG nor SG showed any adverse effects on development of wild type larvae/pupae and lifespan of adult flies, although higher concentrations (0.25% and above) of each of them had dose-dependent adverse effects on life span and/or larval/pupal survival.…”