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Review
. 2022 Jun 20;27(12):3956.
doi: 10.3390/molecules27123956.

The Role of Saponins in the Treatment of Neuropathic Pain

Bei Tan  1 , Xueqing Wu  1 , Jie Yu  1   2 , Zhong Chen  1
Affiliations
Review

The Role of Saponins in the Treatment of Neuropathic Pain

Bei Tan et al. Molecules. .

Abstract

Neuropathic pain is a chronic pain caused by tissue injury or disease involving the somatosensory nervous system, which seriously affects the patient's body function and quality of life. At present, most clinical medications for the treatment of neuropathic pain, including antidepressants, antiepileptic drugs, or analgesics, often have limited efficacy and non-negligible side effects. As a bioactive and therapeutic component extracted from Chinese herbal medicine, the role of the effective compounds in the prevention and treatment of neuropathic pain have gradually become a research focus to explore new analgesics. Notably, saponins have shown analgesic effects in a large number of animal models. In this review, we summarized the most updated information of saponins, related to their analgesic effects in neuropathic pain, and the recent progress on the research of therapeutic targets and the potential mechanisms. Furthermore, we put up with some perspectives on future investigation to reveal the precise role of saponins in neuropathic pain.

Keywords: chemical structure; mechanism; neuropathic pain; saponins.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Chemical structures of different subgroups of tetracyclic triterpenoid saponins (A), pentacyclic triterpenoid saponins (B), and steroidal saponins (C).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Chemical structures of ginsenosides (A), saikosaponins (B), astragaloside IV (C), and diosgenin and dioscin (D) (Note: PPD, protopanaxadiol; PPT, protopanaxatriol; Glc, glucoside; Rha, rhamnoside; Fuc, fructoside).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Schematic diagram of the direction of in-depth analysis of saponins in the treatment of neuropathic pain in future research.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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