The serum lipidomics reveal the action mechanism of Danggui-Yimucao herbal pair in abortion mice.

Medical abortion is a common medical procedure that women choose to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, but it often brings post-abortion complications. Danggui (Angelica sinensis Radix)-Yimucao (Leonuri Herba), as a herbal pair (DY) in clinical prescriptions of traditional Chinese medicine, is often used in the treatment of gynecological diseases and has the traditional functions of tonifying the blood, promoting blood circulation, removing blood stasis and regulating menstruation. In this study, serum lipidomics were adopted to dissect the mechanism of DY in promoting recovery after medical abortion. A total of 152 differential metabolites were screened by lipidomics. All metabolites were imported into MetaboAnalyst for analysis, and finally key metabolic pathways such as glycerophospholipid metabolism, linoleic acid metabolism and pentose and glucuronate interconversions were enriched. Our results indicated that metabolic disorders in abortion mice were alleviated by DY through glycerophospholipid metabolism, while prostaglandin and leukotriene metabolites might be the key targets of DY to promote post-abortion recovery.

A chemometric study on the identification of 5-methylfurfural and 2-acetylfuran as particular volatile compounds of oxidized fish oil based on SHS-GC-IMS.

Fish oil develops particular off-odors, mainly fishy odor, from the oxidation of its characteristic fatty acids, docosahexaenoic (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic (EPA). Anchovy oil (AO) was taken as representative of fish oils. This was compared to three vegetable oils with different fatty acid compositions, i.e. camellia, sunflower and linseed oil, and differential volatile compounds were identified by static-headspace gas-chromatography ion-mobility-spectrometry (SHS-GC-IMS) and orthogonal partial-least-squares discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) during oxidation at 60 °C. Three groups of differential volatile compounds detected at higher concentrations in the AO were screened out and two compounds, identified as 5-methylfurfural and 2-acetylfuran, were characteristic to the AO and not found in the vegetable oils. They were formed from both EPA and DHA, only present in the AO, and their formation mechanisms were proposed. The contents of 5-methylfurfural and 2-acetylfuran increased linearly with the oxidation time and consequently they could be used as oxidative markers of fish oils.

Network pharmacology-based study on immunomodulatory mechanism of danggui-yimucao herb pair for the treatment of RU486-induced abortion.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: The Danggui-Yimucao herb pair (DY) is a classic combination in Chinese herbal formulas, consisting of the root of Angelica sinensis (Oliv.) Diels and the aerial parts of Leonurus japonicus Houtt. DY first appeared in "Zhulinsi fuke mifang" in the Jin Dynasty, and it has a long history as a drug for the treatment of abortion. However, its underlying immunomodulatory mechanisms involved are still unclear. AIM OF THE STUDY: In this study, network pharmacology and pharmacological experiments were used to explore the role and mechanism of DY in the treatment of medical abortion. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Network pharmacology was used to establish the relationship between the components of DY and abortion-related targets, and to enrich important pathways and biological process for verification. ELISA was used to assess progesterone levels. Flow cytometry was used to detect the degree of differentiation of Th1/Th2 cells. Immunohistochemical methods and qPCR were used to measure the expression levels of T-bet, GATA-3 and IL-4. RESULTS: Through the prediction analysis of network pharmacology, we found that key pathway for DY treatment of abortion, such as anemia, pelvic infection, immune disorders, and coagulation disorders, was Th1/Th2 cell differentiation pathway. The pharmacological results revealed that DY greatly corrected the imbalance of Th cell subsets in abortion mice, significantly inhibited the differentiation of Th2 cells, and resulted in an increase in the Th1/Th2 ratio. In addition, the concentration of progesterone in the serum of mice after abortion was significantly reduced. We also found that DY upregulated spleen T-bet and downregulated IL-4 gene expression in mice. Besides, immunohistochemical results showed that DYE could up-regulate T-bet but inhibit GATA-3 expression. CONCLUSIONS: Our results showed that after RU486-induced abortion, progesterone and Th1/Th2 paradigm were disordered in mice, but DY could make mice recover more quickly, which indicated that DY had great development value in immunoregulation.