Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2021 Apr 15:12:648636.
doi: 10.3389/fphar.2021.648636. eCollection 2021.

PI3K/AKT Signal Pathway: A Target of Natural Products in the Prevention and Treatment of Alzheimer's Disease and Parkinson's Disease

Hui-Zhi Long  1   2 , Yan Cheng  1   2 , Zi-Wei Zhou  1   2 , Hong-Yu Luo  1   2 , Dan-Dan Wen  1 , Li-Chen Gao  1   2
Affiliations
Review

PI3K/AKT Signal Pathway: A Target of Natural Products in the Prevention and Treatment of Alzheimer's Disease and Parkinson's Disease

Hui-Zhi Long et al. Front Pharmacol. .

Abstract

Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD) are two typical neurodegenerative diseases that increased with aging. With the emergence of aging population, the health problem and economic burden caused by the two diseases also increase. Phosphatidylinositol 3-kinases/protein kinase B (PI3K/AKT) signaling pathway regulates signal transduction and biological processes such as cell proliferation, apoptosis and metabolism. According to reports, it regulates neurotoxicity and mediates the survival of neurons through different substrates such as forkhead box protein Os (FoxOs), glycogen synthase kinase-3β (GSK-3β), and caspase-9. Accumulating evidences indicate that some natural products can play a neuroprotective role by activating PI3K/AKT pathway, providing an effective resource for the discovery of potential therapeutic drugs. This article reviews the relationship between AKT signaling pathway and AD and PD, and discusses the potential natural products based on the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway to treat two diseases in recent years, hoping to provide guidance and reference for this field. Further development of Chinese herbal medicine is needed to treat these two diseases.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; PI3K/Akt signal pathway; Parkinson’s disease; natural products; nerve protection; neurodegenerative diseases.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Structure of anti-PD natural compounds.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Structure of anti-AD natural compounds.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Altomare D. A., Testa J. R., Testa A., Joseph R. (2005). Perturbations of the AKT signaling pathway in human cancer. Oncogene. 24 (50), 7455–7464. 10.1038/sj.onc.1209085 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bagheri H., Ghasemi F., Barreto G. E., Rafiee R., Sathyapalan T., Sahebkar A. (2020). Effects of curcumin on mitochondria in neurodegenerative diseases. Biofactors. 46 (1), 5–20. 10.1002/biof.1566 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bassani T. B., Turnes J. M., Moura E. L. R., Bonato J. M., Cóppola-Segovia V., Zanata S. M., et al. (2017). Effects of curcumin on short-term spatial and recognition memory, adult neurogenesis and neuroinflammation in a streptozotocin-induced rat model of dementia of Alzheimer’s type. Behav. Brain Res. 335, 41–54. 10.1016/j.bbr.2017.08.014 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Batista P., Pereira A. (2016). Quality of life in patients with neurodegenerative diseases. J. Neurol. Neurosci. 7 (1). 10.21767/2171-6625.100074 - DOI
    1. Bellacosa A., Kumar C. C., Cristofano A. D., Testa J. R. (2005). Activation of AKT kinases in cancer: implications for therapeutic targeting. Adv. Cancer Res. 94 (1), 29–86. 10.1016/S0065-230X(05)94002-5 - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources