1H NMR-based metabonomic revealed protective effect of Moutan Cortex charcoal on blood-heat and hemorrhage rats.

Moutan Cortex charcoal (MCC), the processed root bark of Paeonia suff ;ruticosa Andrews (Paeoniaceae), is a kind of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and has been used for treating blood-heat and hemorrhage(BHH)syndrome in China for thousands of years. In order to explore potential metabolic mechanism, ¹H NMR-based metabonomics technique was applied to evaluate the effect of MCC on metabolic changes in plasma and urine of BHH rat models. Serum and urine samples were obtained from male SD rats with normal group, model group and MCC group for study. Based on ¹H NMR spectra obtained from plasma and urine samples, principal component analysis (PCA) and orthogonal partial least-squares discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) models were capable of distinguishing the three group. And the 13 pharmacodynamic biomarkers of MCC were identified in the plasma and urine. The results showed that BHH induced great metabolic disorders in plasma and urine metabolisms. However, MCC could reverse the imbalanced metabolites by alanine, aspartate and glutamate metabolism and citrate cycle (TCA cycle) pathway, and its effect was also confirmed by the general signs and pharmacodynamics assessments. The results indicated that NMR-based metabolomic profiling method is sensitive and specific enough to evaluate the MCC efficacy and mechanism of action on BHH syndromes.