Research

Metabolic profiling reveals therapeutic effects of Herba Cistanches in an animal model of hydrocortisone-induced 'kidney-deficiency syndrome'

Yunping Qiu¹ , Minjun Chen¹ , Mingming Su² , Guoxiang Xie³ , Xin Li¹ , Mingmei Zhou² , Aihua Zhao¹ , Jian Jiang² and Wei Jia^1,2,3

¹School of Pharmacy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200030, China

²Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai 201203, China

³Shanghai Center for Systems Biomedicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 201203, China

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Chinese Medicine 2008, 3:3doi:10.1186/1749-8546-3-3

Published:	10 March 2008

Abstract

Background

Herba Cistanches (Roucongrong) is effective in treating Shenxu Zheng ('kidney-deficiency syndrome'). However, the mechanisms and systemic metabolic responses to the herbal intervention are unclear.

Methods

Using GC-MS-based metabolic profiling, we investigated the metabolic responses to Herba Cistanches intervention in a rat model of the hydrocortisone-induced 'kidney-deficiency syndrome'.

Results

The metabolic profiles of the rats after hydrocortisone injection deviated from the pre-dose metabolic state at different time points, ranging from day 1 to day 10, whereas the metabolic profiles of the rats treated with both hydrocortisone and water extract of Herba Cistanches returned to the pre-dose state on day 10.

Conclusion

The intervention of Herba Cistanches caused a systemic recovery from the hydrocortisone-induced metabolic perturbation in rats. This study also demonstrates that metabolic profiling is useful in studying therapeutic mechanisms of herbal medicines.