Research Paper Volume 13, Issue 15 pp 19510—19528

UHPLC-MS-based metabolomics and chemoinformatics study reveals the neuroprotective effect and chemical characteristic in Parkinson’s disease mice after oral administration of Wen-Shen-Yang-Gan decoction

Guoxue Zhu1,3, *, , Wang Wang2, *, , Chang Chen1,4, , Lili Tang1, , Yan Liang1, , Zhennian Zhang1, , Yan Lu1, , Yang Zhao1, &, ,

  • 1 Department of Neurology, Nanjing Hospital of Chinese Medicine Affiliated to Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China
  • 2 School of Medicine and Holistic Integrative Medicine, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China
  • 3 Chinese Medicine Modernization and Big Data Research Center, Nanjing Hospital of Chinese Medicine Affiliated to Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China
  • 4 Medical School of Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China
* Equal contribution

Received: January 9, 2021       Accepted: July 6, 2021       Published: August 2, 2021      

https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.203361
How to Cite

Copyright: © 2021 Zhu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Parkinson’s disease (PD), the typical neurodegenerative disease, is characterized by the progressive loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra (SN). However, no therapeutic agent used currently could slow down neuronal cell loss so as to decelerate or halt the progression of PD. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been utilized to treat the dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system. Wen-Shen-Yang-Gan decoction (WSYGD) has a good effect on the clinical treatment of PD with constipation. However, it is not clear which ingredients and what mechanism are responsible for the therapeutic effect. In this study, the pharmacodynamic study of WSYGD in PD mice was applied. Concurrently, a novel method for the identification of metabolic profiles of WSYGD has been developed. Finally, we found that WSYGD could protect the PD mice induced by rotenone. The underlying mechanism of the protective effect may be related to the reduction of the DA neurons apoptosis via reducing inflammatory reaction. By virtue of UPLC-MS and chemoinformatics method, 35 prototype compounds and 27 metabolites were filtered out and tentatively characterized. In conclusion, this study provides an insight into the metabolism of WSYGD in vivo to enable understanding of the metabolic process and therapeutic mechanism of PD.

Abbreviations

OPLS-DA: Orthogonal partial least squared discriminate analysis; PCA: Principal component analysis; PD: Parkinson’s disease; SN: substantia nigra; TCM: Traditional Chinese medicine; WSYGD: Wen-Shen-Yang-Gan decoction; TNF-α: Tumor necrosis factor-α; IL-17: interleukin-17; IL-22: interleukin-22; IFN-γ: Interferon-gamma; IL-1β: Interleukin-1 beta; IGF-1: insulin-like growth factors -1; TGF-β: transforming growth factor-beta.