Effects of Niaoduqing granule on urine metabolic profile in chronic renal failure rats

Abstract

To investigate the effects of Niaoduqing granule on the urine metabolic profile in chronic renal failure (CRF) rats. Thirty six male SD rats were divided into the normal control group, the model group, and the Niaoduqing group with 12 rats in each group. The CRF was induced by gavage of 250 mg·kg-1·d-1 adenine for 21 d. UPLC-Q-TOF-MS/MS technique was used in combination with principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) to analyze the urine metabolic profiles in three groups. The endogenous substances with the variable importance projection (VIP)>1 and P<0.05 were screened as the potential biomarkers for CRF, and enrichment analysis of metabolic pathways was carried out. Compared with the normal control group, the model group had lower body weight, higher kidney coefficient, higher serum creatinine and urea nitrogen levels (all P<0.01), while the above indexes in the Niaoduqing group were ameliorated compared with the model group (all P<0.01). Fifteen potential biomarkers were found in the urine of the model group, which were involved in 9 metabolic pathways including phenylalanine, tyrosine and tryptophan biosynthesis, glyoxylate and dicarboxylate metabolism, valine, leucine and isoleucine biosynthesis, arachidonic acid metabolism, cysteine and methionine metabolism, tricarboxylic acid cycle, glycerophosphatide metabolism, tryptophan metabolism and tyrosine metabolism. Niaoduqing granules has therapeutic effect on rats with CRF, which may be related to the regulation of amino acid metabolism, lipid metabolism and energy metabolism.