Comparative metabolomics analysis on invigorating blood circulation for herb pair Gui-Hong by ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry and pattern recognition approach

The compatibility of Angelicae Sinensis Radix (Danggui, DG) and Flos Carthami (Honghua, HH), a famous herb pair Gui-Hong (GH), can produce synergistic and promoting blood effects. Although some physiological and pathological function parameters of the acute blood stasis have been investigated, little information about the changes of small metabolites in biofluids has been reported. In present study, global metabolic profiling with ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-QTOF/MS) combined with pattern recognition method was performed to discover the underlying blood-activating regulation mechanisms of DG, HH and GH on the acute blood stasis rats induced by subcutaneous injection of adrenaline hydrochloride and ice water bath. The total 14 metabolites (10 in urine and 4 in plasma), up regulated or down regulated (P<0.05 or 0.01), were identified and contributed to the acute blood stasis progress. These promising identified biomarkers underpin the metabolic pathway including phenylalanine metabolism, sphingolipid metabolism, arachidonic acid metabolism and arginine and proline metabolism are disturbed in the acute blood stasis rats, which identified by using pathway analysis with MetPA. The altered metabolites and hemorheological indexes could be regulated closer to normal level after DG, HH and GH intervention. In term of activate blood circulation function, GH was the most effective as shown by the relative distance in PLS-DA score plots and relative intensity of metabolomics trategy, reflecting the synergic action between Danggui and Honghua. The results demonstrated that biofluids metabolomics was a powerful tool in clinical diagnosis and treatment of syndrome of blood stasis for providing information on changes in metabolites pathways.