Metabolomics study of Buyang Huanwu Tang Decoction in ischemic stroke mice by 1H NMR

The characteristic of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is the use of multiple components for multiple therapeutic targets. Metabolomics provides a measurement of multiparametric metabolic response in a living system to the effects of genetic or environmental modulation, which has been highly favored in evidence-based TCM study in recent years. A Chinese herbal decoction of Buyang Huanwu Tang (BHTD) has long been used for stroke treatment. In this study, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)-based metabolomics was conducted to examine the therapeutic effects of BHTD in a cerebral artery occlusion-induced sub-acute stroke mouse model. The brain tissues were analyzed in a nano probe using Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill (CPMG) sequence for metabolic profiles. The spectral data were analyzed in conjunction with orthogonal partial least-squares discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) to discover the metabolic effects in stroke mice and the effects of BHTD treatment. Twenty endogenous metabolites were identified. Among them, significant increase in acetone, beta-hydroxybutyrate, glucose, lactate, and alanine, and significant decrease of gamma-aminobutyrate, acetate, N-acetyl aspartate, glutamate, citrate, creatine + phosphocreatine, choline, phosphocholine + glycerophosphocholine, taurine, myo-inositol, glycerol, glycolate, and adenine were found in the brain of stroke mice when compared with normal mice. OPLS-DA results showed that metabolite profiles in the brain of ischemic stroke mice, treated with BHTD, were partially reversed to normal. After BHTD treatment, the levels of most abnormal metabolites were restored. Our study suggests that NMR-based metabolomics can provide a simple and easy tool for herbal therapeutic evaluation.