Si-Ni-San Ameliorates the Clinical Symptoms of Interstitial Cystitis/Bladder Pain Syndrome in Rats by Decreasing the Expression of Inflammatory Factors.

OBJECTIVE: To observe the therapeutic effect of Si-Ni-San (SNS) on interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome (IC/BPS) in rats, and explore the possible regulatory mechanism of SNS on IC/BPS combined with transcriptome analysis. METHODS: An IC/BPS model of Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats was established with cyclophosphamide (CYP), and the SNS was extracted for treatment. The rats were divided into 4 groups (n = 10 in each group): Control group (blank), cyclophosphamide group (CYP group, CYP injection + normal saline gavage), lower-dose SNS group (LSNS group, CYP injection + 6 g/kg SNS gavage), and higher-dose SNS group (HSNS group, CYP injection + 12 g/kg SNS gavage). Urination, pain, and histological changes were observed in the rats after the experiment, and Western blotting (WB) and transcriptome analysis were performed on bladder tissues. RESULTS: Compared with the CYP group, the urination, pain and inflammation symptoms of the IC/BPS model rats in the SNS treatment groups (LSNS and HSNS) were significantly improved (p < 0.05). WB results showed that the expressions of inflammation-related proteins interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) in the SNS treatment groups were significantly decreased compared with those in the CYP group. Transcriptome results showed that SNS can affect the expression of inflammation-related genes and inflammatory signaling pathways. CONCLUSIONS: SNS can significantly alleviate the symptoms of inflammation and pain in IC/BPS rats, and its mechanism may be related to the down-regulation of inflammatory factors IL-6 and TNF-α through messenger RNA (mRNA) and long non-coding RNA (LncRNA) pathways.