Abstract
Plantaginis Semen (PS) is well recognized in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and health products. Crude PS (CPS) and salt-processed CPS (SPS) are the two most commonly used decoction pieces of PS, and are included in the 2020 edition of Chinese Pharmacopoeia. Although they all have multiple effects, the mechanisms for treating diseases are different and remain unclear, the processing mechanism of SPS is also indeterminate, which hinders their clinical application to a certain extent. In order to solve these problems and further develop PS in the clinical application. Here, we used saline-loaded model rats for experiments, and utilized an integrated approach consisting of pharmacological methods and metabolomics, which could assess the diuretic impact of CPS and SPS ethanol extracts on saline-loaded rats and elucidate the underlying mechanism. The results showed that CPS and SPS both produced increased urine volume excretion and urine electrolyte excretion, but the levels of aldosterone (ALD) and aquaporin 2 (AQP2) were decreased. And 30 differential metabolites such as linoleic acid, lysoPC(O-18:0), sphingosine-1-phosphate, lysoPC(18:0) were found, mainly involving three metabolic pathways. In conclusion, CPS and SPS both have a diuretic effect, and that of SPS is better. This work investigated the possible diuretic mechanisms of CPS and SPS which may also be the mechanism of PS for anti-hypertension. In addition, a holistic approach provided novel and helpful insights into the underlying processing mechanisms of TCM.
Highlights
Diuretics are potent therapeutic compounds that have been extensively employed for the treatment of chronic conditions such as hypertension and common edematous disorders including cardiac failure, hepatic cirrhosis, and nephrotic syndrome
In metabolomics research based on UPLC-Q-TOF/MS technology, to obtain reliable and high-quality data, analytical errors should not affect the results of multivariate statistical analysis
A principal component analysis (PCA) score map showed that the stability of the established analytical method was good, and the differences between the test samples mainly came from the differences of the metabolites in the samples rather than from errors from the analytical method (QC) (Figures 5A, C)
Summary
Diuretics are potent therapeutic compounds that have been extensively employed for the treatment of chronic conditions such as hypertension and common edematous disorders including cardiac failure, hepatic cirrhosis, and nephrotic syndrome. Diuretics provide important therapeutic effects in the treatment of various diseases similar to all potent therapeutic agents, its clinical use has been associated with several adverse effects, such as increases in the risk of lip cancer (Pottegård et al, 2017), fracture risk. Studies have focused on the positive effects of herbs and botanicals on health and wellness, in addition to their potential used in the treatment of some diseases (Wright et al, 2007)
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