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Objective: Storke is a leading cause of death and disability affecting million people worldwide, 80% of which is ischemic stroke (IS). Recently, traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) have received great attentions in treating IS due to their low poisonous effects and high safety. Buyang Huanwu Decoction (BHD), a famous and classical Chinese prescription, has been used for treating stroke-induced disability for centuries. Yet, its underlying mechanism is still in fancy. Methods: We first constructed an IS model by middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO). Then, a metabonomics study on serum samples was performed using UHPLC-QTOF/MS, followed by multivariate data analysis including principal components analysis (PCA) and orthogonal partial least squares-discriminate analysis (OPLS-DA). Results: Metabolic profiling of PCA indicated metabolic perturbation caused by MCAO was regulated by BHD back to normal levels, which is in agreement with the neurobehavioral evaluations. In the OPLS-DA, 12 metabolites were screened as potential biomarkers involved in MCAO-induced IS. Three metabolic pathways were recognized as the most relevant pathways, involving one carbon pool by folate, sphingolipid metabolism and inositol phosphate metabolism. BHD significantly reversed the abnormality of 7 metabolites to normal levels. Conclusions: This is the first study to investigate the effect of BHD on IS at the metabolite level and to reveal the underlying mechanisms of BHD, which is complementary to neurobehavioral evaluation. In a broad sense, the current study brings novel and valuable insights to evaluate efficacy of TCMs, to interpret the action mechanisms, and to provide the theoretical basis for further research on the therapeutic mechanisms in clinical practice.
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The growing incidence of Clostridium difficile associated diarrhea (CDAD) underscores the urgency for potent treatments. This research delves into the therapeutic potential of Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi (Lamiaceae) root (SR) in addressing CDAD and its influence on gut microbiota. Using a CDAD mouse model and fidaxomicin as a control, SR's impact was measured through diarrhea symptoms, colonic histopathology, and C. difficile toxin levels. Employing the PacBio platform, 16S rRNA full-length gene sequencing analyzed the gut microbial composition and the effect of SR. Results revealed SR considerably alleviated diarrhea during treatment and restoration phases, with a marked decrease in colonic inflammation. C. difficile toxin levels dropped significantly with SR treatment (P < 0.001). While SR didn't augment gut microbiota's overall abundance, it enhanced its diversity. It restored levels of Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes, reduced Akkermansia spp. and Enterococcus spp. proportions, and modulated specific bacterial species' abundance. In essence, SR effectively mitigates CDAD symptoms, curtails inflammatory reactions, and beneficially restructures gut microbiota, suggesting its potential in advanced CDAD clinical intervention.
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Clostridioides difficile , Diarreia , Microbioma Gastrointestinal , Extratos Vegetais , Scutellaria baicalensis , Microbioma Gastrointestinal/efeitos dos fármacos , Animais , Diarreia/microbiologia , Diarreia/tratamento farmacológico , Camundongos , Scutellaria baicalensis/química , Extratos Vegetais/farmacologia , Raízes de Plantas/química , Masculino , Infecções por Clostridium/tratamento farmacológico , Modelos Animais de Doenças , RNA Ribossômico 16S/genética , Camundongos Endogâmicos C57BL , Colo/microbiologiaRESUMO
Two new monoterpenoid indole alkaloids, gelselegandines F (1) and G (2), were isolated from the aerial parts of Gelsemium elegans. Their structures were elucidated by means of spectroscopic techniques and quantum chemical calculations. The ECD calculations were conducted at the B3LYP/6-311G(d,p) level and NMR calculations were carried out using the Gauge-Including Atomic Orbitals (GIAO) method. Structurally, the two new compounds possessed rare, cage-like, monoterpenoid indole skeletons. All isolated compounds and the total alkaloids extract were tested for cytotoxicity against four different tumor cell lines. The total alkaloids extract of G. elegans exhibited significant antitumor activity with IC50 values ranging from 32.63 to 82.24 ug/mL. In order to discover anticancer leads from the active extraction, both new indole compounds (1-2) were then screened for cytotoxicity. Interestingly, compound 2 showed moderate cytotoxicity against K562 leukemia cells with an IC50 value of 57.02 uM.
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Antineoplásicos , Gelsemium , Alcaloides de Triptamina e Secologanina , Estrutura Molecular , Gelsemium/química , Indóis , Alcaloides de Triptamina e Secologanina/farmacologia , Alcaloides de Triptamina e Secologanina/química , Antineoplásicos/farmacologia , Extratos Vegetais/farmacologia , Alcaloides Indólicos/químicaRESUMO
OBJECITVIE: To compare the liver protective activity of fresh/dried dandelion extracts against acetaminophen (APAP)-induced hepatotoxicity. METHODS: Totally 90 Kunming mice were randomly divided into 10 groups according to body weight (9 mice for each group). The mice in the normal control and model (vehicle control) groups were administered sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC-Na, 0.5%) only. Administration groups were pretreated with high and low-dose dry dandelion extract (1,000 or 500 g fresh herb dried and then decocted into 120 mL solution, DDE-H and DDE-L); low-, medium- and high-dose dandelion juice (250, 500, 1,000 g/120 mL, DJ-L, DJ-M, and DJ-H); fresh dandelions evaporation juice water (120 mL, DEJW); dry dandelion extract dissolved by pure water (1 kg/120 mL, DDED-PW); dry dandelion extract dissolved by DEJW (120 g/120 mL, DDED-DEJW) by oral gavage for 7 days at the dosage of 0.5 mL solution/10 g body weight; after that, except normal control group, all other groups were intraperitonealy injected with 350 mg/kg APAP to induce liver injury. Twenty hours after APAP administration, serum and liver tissue were collected and serum alanine aminotransferase (AST), aspartate transaminase (ALT), alkaline phosphatase (AKP), malondialdehyde (MDA), glutathione (GSH), superoxide dismutase (SOD) activities were quantified by biochemical kits; tumor necrosis factor (TNF-α), interleukin (IL)-2, and IL-1 ß contents in liver tissue were determined by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay kits. Histopathological changes in liver tissues were observed by hematoxylin and eosin staining; TUNEL Assay and Hoechst 33258 staining were applied for cell apoptosis evaluation. The expressions of heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1), nuclear factor erythroid-2-related factor 2 (Nrf-2), caspase-9, B-cell leukemia/lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2), Bax and p-JNK were determined by Western blot analysis. RESULTS: Pretreatment with fresh dandelion juice (FDJ, including DJ-L, DJ-M, DJ-H, DEJW and DDED-DEJW) significantly decreased the levels of serum ALT, AST, AKP, TNF-α and IL-1ß compared with vehicle control group (P<0.05 or P<0.01). Additionally, compared with the vehicle control group, FDJ decreased the levels of hepatic MDA and restored GSH levels and SOD activity in livers (P<0.05 or P<0.01). FDJ inhibited the overexpression of pro-inflammatory factors including cyclooxygenase-2 and inducible nitric oxide synthase in the liver tissues (P<0.05 or P<0.01). Furthermore, Western blot analysis revealed that FDJ pretreatment inhibited activation of apoptotic signaling pathways via decreasing of Bax, and caspase-9 and JNK protein expression, and inhibited activation of JNK pathway (P<0.05 or P<0.01). Liver histopathological observation provided further evidence that FDJ pretreatment significantly inhibited APAP-induced hepatocyte necrosis, inflammatory cell infiltration and congestion. CONCLUSIONS: FDJ pretreatment protects against APAP-induced hepatic injury by activating the Nrf-2/HO-1 pathway and inhibition of the intrinsic apoptosis pathway, and the effect of fresh dandelion extracts was superior to dried dandelion extracts in APAP hepatotoxicity model mice.
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Doença Hepática Induzida por Substâncias e Drogas , Taraxacum , Acetaminofen/metabolismo , Acetaminofen/toxicidade , Alanina Transaminase , Animais , Apoptose , Peso Corporal , Caspase 9/metabolismo , Doença Hepática Induzida por Substâncias e Drogas/tratamento farmacológico , Doença Hepática Induzida por Substâncias e Drogas/prevenção & controle , Diclorodifenil Dicloroetileno/metabolismo , Diclorodifenil Dicloroetileno/farmacologia , Glutationa/metabolismo , Fígado , Camundongos , Estresse Oxidativo , Extratos Vegetais/farmacologia , Extratos Vegetais/uso terapêutico , Superóxido Dismutase/metabolismo , Taraxacum/metabolismo , Fator de Necrose Tumoral alfa/metabolismo , Água/metabolismo , Proteína X Associada a bcl-2/metabolismoRESUMO
Lagotis brevituba is a famous Tibetan medicine plant and its complete chloroplast genome is determined in this study. The complete chloroplast genome is 152,967 bp in length, with a large single-copy (LSC) region of 83,740 bp, a small single copy (SSC) region of 17,845 bp, and a pair of inverted repeats (IRs) of 25,691 bp. The whole genome contained 131 genes, including 86 protein-coding genes, 37 tRNA genes and 8 rRNA genes. The phylogenetic tree showed that L. brevituba clustered with L. yunnanensis in family Plantaginaceae.
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ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Alstonia scholaris (L.) R. Br. (Apocynaceae) is a Dai folk medicine for the treatment of lung diseases in China. AIM OF THE STUDY: The present study investigated the anti-pulmonary fibrosis effects of total alkaloids (TA) and the potential active ingredients and its possible mechanism. MATERIALS AND METHODS: After intratracheal instillation of bleomycin (BLM, 5 mg/kg), mice were divided into ten groups, and orally treated with the corresponding samples once daily for 28 days. The effect of indole alkaloids was determined through analysis of cytokines, as well as histopathological examinations and gene expressions. RESULTS: Severe lung fibrosis was observed in the BLM-treated mice on day 28. However, the administration of TA significantly ameliorated the pathological changes in the lungs, decreased the content of Krebs von den Lungen-6, lactate dehydrogenase, transforming growth factor-ß (TGF-ß), hydroxyproline, type I collagen, and malonaldehyde, and enhanced the activity of superoxide dismutase in the serum and lung tissues. In addition, the enhanced TGF-ß and matrix metalloproteinase-1 (MMP-1) expressions in BLM-induced mice were obviously weakened by indole alkaloids, as well as the ratio of matrix metalloproteinase-1 to tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-1 was decreased. Moreover, picrinine and scholaricine yielded markedly better values in the aforementioned indices than those in other samples, indicating that they may be the active ingredients of alkaloids. CONCLUSIONS: TA exerted protective effects against BLM-induced pulmonary fibrosis by reducing collagen deposition through TGF-ß/MMP-1 pathway.
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Alstonia , Alcaloides Indólicos/farmacologia , Pulmão/efeitos dos fármacos , Extratos Vegetais/farmacologia , Fibrose Pulmonar/prevenção & controle , Alstonia/química , Animais , Bleomicina , Colágeno/metabolismo , Citocinas/metabolismo , Modelos Animais de Doenças , Regulação da Expressão Gênica , Alcaloides Indólicos/isolamento & purificação , Mediadores da Inflamação/metabolismo , Pulmão/metabolismo , Pulmão/patologia , Masculino , Metaloproteinase 13 da Matriz/genética , Metaloproteinase 13 da Matriz/metabolismo , Camundongos Endogâmicos ICR , Extratos Vegetais/isolamento & purificação , Fibrose Pulmonar/induzido quimicamente , Fibrose Pulmonar/metabolismo , Fibrose Pulmonar/patologia , Transdução de Sinais , Inibidor Tecidual de Metaloproteinase-1/genética , Inibidor Tecidual de Metaloproteinase-1/metabolismo , Fator de Crescimento Transformador beta/genética , Fator de Crescimento Transformador beta/metabolismoRESUMO
Allergic rhinitis (AR) negatively affects the healthy lives of many individuals. Most previous studies on AR focused on the expression of cytokines, with only a few analyzing cytokine expression from a metabolomics viewpoint. Therefore, it is worthwhile to study AR at the metabolic level. Consequently, we aimed to identify differential serum biomarkers by metabolomics. In this study, the orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) model was applied to characterize the differences in serum samples collected from patients with AR and healthy volunteers. Ten metabolites (except hexadecanoic acid) were found to be altered significantly (p < .05) in the former group, according to results of principal component analysis and OPLS-DA, indicating that these metabolites could be potential biomarkers. MetaboAnalyst 4.0 and pathway enrichment analysis showed that these changes in metabolites mainly involved three pathways, namely, porphyrin and chlorophyll metabolism, arachidonic acid metabolism, and purine metabolism. Our findings may contribute to a better understanding of the potential pathogenesis mechanisms and provide a metabolic evidence for in-depth studies of AR.
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Metaboloma/fisiologia , Metabolômica/métodos , Rinite Alérgica/sangue , Rinite Alérgica/metabolismo , Adulto , Biomarcadores/sangue , Biomarcadores/metabolismo , Cromatografia Líquida de Alta Pressão , Feminino , Humanos , Masculino , Espectrometria de Massas , Pessoa de Meia-IdadeRESUMO
To screen potential biomarkers of curcumin related to treating depression rats by using metabolomics means, so as to explore the antidepressant action mechanism of curcumin. The healthy male SD rats were randomly divided into four groups. Chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS) stimulation was conducted for modeling for 2 weeks, and then curcumin (200 mgâ¢kg⻹) or venlafaxine (40 mgâ¢kg⻹) was given by gavage administration. The blank group and model group rats were given with the same volume of 1% CMCNa normal saline, once per day for two weeks. The rats serum for each group was collected and LC/MS-IT-TOF method was used to characterize the metabolic differences. Also multivariate statistical analysis was used to screen possible potential biomarkers and analyze the possible metabolic pathways. After administration of curcumin and venlafaxine respectively, the depression indexes of CUMS model rats were all improved significantly (P<0.05), but there were no significant differences between curcumin and venlafaxine groups. In PCA and PLS-DA analysis after curcumin or venlafaxine intervention on CUMS model group rats, the small molecule metabolites level reflects a normal trend, and particularly for the curcumin group. Through metabonomics technology, 11 biomarkers associated with curcumin antidepressant effect were screened, and at the same time seven metabolic pathways were involved. The results showed that curcumin had antidepressant effects, which was evident in both macro and micro levels, comparable with positive drug of venlafaxine. The antidepressant effect of curcumin may be associated with the glycerol phospholipid metabolism, linoleic acid metabolism, pentose and glucuronic acid ester and ether lipid metabolism, but still need further exploration in the future.
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Antidepressivos/farmacologia , Biomarcadores , Curcumina/farmacologia , Depressão/tratamento farmacológico , Metabolômica , Animais , Modelos Animais de Doenças , Masculino , Distribuição Aleatória , Ratos , Ratos Sprague-Dawley , Estresse PsicológicoRESUMO
BACKGROUND AND AIM: Chinese herbal medicine (CHM), as well as Western medicine (WM), is an important cause of drug-induced liver injury (DILI). However, the differences between CHM and WM as agents implicated in liver injury have rarely been reported. METHODS: Overall, 1985 (2.05%) DILI cases were retrospectively collected from the 96 857 patients hospitalized because of liver dysfunction in the 302 Military Hospital between January 2009 and January 2014. RESULTS: In all the enrolled patients with DILI, CHM was implicated in 563 cases (28.4%), while 870 cases (43.8%) were caused by WM and the remaining patients (27.8%) by the combination of WM and CHM. Polygonum multiflorum was the major implicated CHM. Compared with WM, the cases caused by CHM showed more female (51 vs 71%, P < 0.001) and positive rechallenge (6.1 vs 8.9%, P = 0.046), a much greater proportion of hepatocellular injury (62.2 vs 88.5%, P < 0.001), and a higher mortality (2.8 vs 4.8%, P = 0.042); however, no differences in the rates of chronic DILI and ALF were found (12.9 vs 12.4%, P = 0.807; 7.6 vs 7.6%, P = 0.971). Based on Roussel Uclaf Causality Assessment Method, 75.6% of cases caused by CHM were classified as probable and only 16.6% as highly probable, significantly different from WM (38.4 and 60.3%, all P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The causal relationship between CHM and liver injury is much complex, and the clinical characteristics of DILI caused by CHM differ from those caused by WM.
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Doenças Biliares/induzido quimicamente , Doença Hepática Induzida por Substâncias e Drogas/etiologia , Medicamentos de Ervas Chinesas/efeitos adversos , Medicina Tradicional Chinesa/efeitos adversos , Pancreatopatias/induzido quimicamente , Adulto , Doenças Biliares/diagnóstico , Doenças Biliares/mortalidade , Doença Hepática Induzida por Substâncias e Drogas/diagnóstico , Doença Hepática Induzida por Substâncias e Drogas/mortalidade , Feminino , Hospitalização , Humanos , Masculino , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Pancreatopatias/diagnóstico , Pancreatopatias/mortalidade , Prognóstico , Estudos Retrospectivos , Medição de Risco , Fatores de Risco , Fatores de TempoRESUMO
ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Alstonia scholaris (Apocynaceae) have been traditionally used for treatment of respiratory diseases in "dai" ethnopharmacy for hundreds years, especially for cough, asthma, phlegm, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and so on. The formulas including the leaf extract have also been prescribed in hospitals and sold over the retail pharmacies. AIM OF THE STUDY: A. scholaris is used as a traditional herbal medicine for the treatment of respiratory tract inflammation. However, there is no scientific evidence to validate the use of total alkaloids of A. scholaris in the literature. Here, we investigated the protective activity of total alkaloids (TA), extracted from the leaves of Alstonia scholaris, against lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced airway inflammation (AI) in rats. MATERIALS AND METHODS: 200 µg/µL LPS was instilled intratracheally in each rat, and then the modeling animals were divided into six groups (n=10, each) randomly: sham group, LPS group, Dexamethasone [1.5mg/kg, intra-gastricly (i.g.)] group, and three different doses (7.5, 15, and 30 mg/kg, i.g.) of total alkaloids-treated groups. Corresponding drugs or vehicles were orally administered once per day for 7 days consecutively. The concentration of albumin (ALB), alkaline phosphatase (AKP), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), and the number of inflammatory cells in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) were determined by fully automatic biochemical analyzer and blood counting instrument. Nitric oxide (NO) level, malondialdehyde (MDA) content, and superoxide dismutase (SOD) activities were examined by multiskan spectrum, and histological change in the lungs was analyzed by H.E. staining. The levels of inflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and interleukin-8 (IL-8) were measured using ELISA. RESULTS: Total alkaloids decreased the percentage of neutrophil, number of WBC, levels of ALB, AKP and LDH in the BALF, while increased the content of ALB in serum. It also improved SOD activity and increased NO level in the lungs, serum and BALF, and reduced the concentration of MDA in the lungs. Total alkaloids also inhibited the production of inflammatory cytokines TNF-α and IL-8 in the BALF and lung. Finally, histopathological examination indicated that total alkaloids attenuated tissue injury of the lungs in LPS-induced AI. CONCLUSIONS: Total alkaloids have an inhibitory effect against LPS-induced airway inflammation in rats.
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Alcaloides/farmacologia , Alstonia/química , Inflamação/tratamento farmacológico , Pulmão/efeitos dos fármacos , Extratos Vegetais/farmacologia , Fosfatase Alcalina/metabolismo , Animais , Líquido da Lavagem Broncoalveolar , Modelos Animais de Doenças , Inflamação/metabolismo , Interleucina-8/metabolismo , L-Lactato Desidrogenase/metabolismo , Pulmão/metabolismo , Masculino , Malondialdeído/metabolismo , Óxido Nítrico/metabolismo , Extratos Vegetais/química , Folhas de Planta/química , Ratos , Ratos Sprague-Dawley , Superóxido Dismutase/metabolismo , Fator de Necrose Tumoral alfa/metabolismoRESUMO
In this paper, the spectrum-effect correlation analysis method was used to explore the main effective components of Tripterygium wilfordii for liver toxicity, and provide reference for promoting the quality control of T. wilfordii. Chinese medicine T.wilfordii was taken as the study object, and LC-Q-TOF-MS was used to characterize the chemical components in T. wilfordii samples from different areas, and their main components were initially identified after referring to the literature. With the normal human hepatocytes (LO2 cell line)as the carrier, acetaminophen as positive medicine, and cell inhibition rate as testing index, the simple correlation analysis and multivariate linear correlation analysis methods were used to screen the main components of T. wilfordii for liver toxicity. As a result, 10 kinds of main components were identified, and the spectrum-effect correlation analysis showed that triptolide may be the toxic component, which was consistent with previous results of traditional literature. Meanwhile it was found that tripterine and demethylzeylasteral may greatly contribute to liver toxicity in multivariate linear correlation analysis. T. wilfordii samples of different varieties or different origins showed large difference in quality, and the T. wilfordii from southwest China showed lower liver toxicity, while those from Hunan and Anhui province showed higher liver toxicity. This study will provide data support for further rational use of T. wilfordii and research on its liver toxicity ingredients.
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Medicamentos de Ervas Chinesas/toxicidade , Hepatócitos/efeitos dos fármacos , Fígado/efeitos dos fármacos , Tripterygium/toxicidade , Linhagem Celular , China , Humanos , Análise Espectral , Testes de Toxicidade , Tripterygium/químicaRESUMO
Autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) is often confused with other liver diseases because of their shared nonspecific symptoms and serological and histological overlap. This study compared the plasma metabolomic profiles of patients with AIH, primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC), PBC/AIH overlap syndrome (OS), and drug-induced liver injury (DILI) with those of healthy subjects to identify potential biomarkers of AIH. Metabolomic profiling and biomarker screening were performed using proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H NMR) coupled with a partial least-squares discriminant analysis. Compared with the levels in healthy volunteers and other liver disease patients, AIH patients exhibited relatively high levels of plasma pyruvate, lactate, acetate, acetoacetate, and glucose. Such metabolites are typically related to energy metabolism alterations and may be a sign of metabolic conversion to the aerobic glycolysis phenotype of excessive immune activation. Increased aromatic amino acids and decreased branched-chain amino acids were found in the plasma of AIH patients. The whole NMR profiles were stepwise-reduced, and nine metabolomic biomarkers having the greatest significance in the discriminant analysis were obtained. The diagnostic utility of the selected metabolites was assessed, and these biomarkers achieved good sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy (all above 93%) in distinguishing AIH from PBC, DILI, and OS. This report is the first to present the metabolic phenotype of AIH and the potential utility of 1H NMR metabolomics in the diagnosis of AIH.
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Some recent clinical reports have shown that the combination of oxymatrine, a phyto-derived drug, with lamivudine (3TC) could improve its curative effect against hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. However, the experimental data in support of this combination strategy are lacking. In this study, we investigated the anti-HBV activity of the combination of 3TC and either oxymatrine or matrine on HepG2 2.2.15 in vitro. The activities of the combination and the solo compound, each in different concentrations, were compared on the 3rd, 6th, and 9th experimental days. The cytotoxicity results showed that the nontoxic concentrations of both oxymatrine and matrine to HepG2 2.2.15 cells were 800 µg/mL. We found that the single use of oxymatrine below 100 µg/ml, matrine below 200 µg/ml, and 3TC below 30 µg/ml showed weak inhibitory effects on the secretion of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg), and HBV-DNA in culture media; the combination of 3TC (30 µg/ml) with oxymatrine (100 µg/ml) or matrine (100 µg/ml) showed significant inhibitory effects that were higher than or equivalent to the single use of 3TC at 100 µg/ml. The results provide a new impetus to develop novel, multicomponent anti-HBV drugs through the combination of natural products with nucleoside analogs to enhance their activity.
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Chromium nephrotoxicity (CrNT) is thought to occur through the oxidant lesion mechanism. There is still a lack of specific remedies against CrNT. We primarily screened Chinese herbal medicines with a potential protective effect against CrNT, e.g., rhubarb (Rheum palmatum L.). However, the active constituents in rhubarb and its mechanisms remain unclear. In this study, the total rhubarb extract (TR) was successively separated into three parts: total anthraquinone extract (TA), total tannin extract (TT) and remaining component extract (RC). The effects of each extract on the potassium dichromate (K(2)Cr(2)O(7))-induced nephrotoxicity in rats were comparatively assessed. The results showed that only the administration of TT protected the kidney function in K(2)Cr(2)O(7)-injured rats. Besides, TT showed significant activity to scavenge hydroxyl radicals, which is considered to be the dominant lesion product generated by hexavalent chromium. TT also showed a reduced ability to transform toxic high valence chromium ions into non-toxic low valence ions. And TT was able to further precipitate chromium ions. These results suggested that rhubarb tannins treat CrNT as a free radical scavenger, reductant, and metal precipitant. The multiple protective routes of the plant tannins reveal a superior option for development into a promising natural remedy against CrNT. In addition, the opposite effects of rhubarb anthraquinones in treating CrNT were observed compared to rhubarb tannins, which suggested the duo-directional effects (Yin and Yang) of herbal medicines should be addressed.