An integrated metabolomics strategy to reveal dose-effect relationship and therapeutic mechanisms of different efficacy of rhubarb in constipation rats

The ambiguity of dose-effect relationship of many traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) has always influenced their rational use in TCM clinic. Rhubarb, a preferred representative of cathartic TCM, is currently widely used that results in a diversity of its dosage. The aim of this study was to use an integrated metabolomics strategy to simultaneously reveal dose-effect relationship and therapeutic mechanisms of different efficacy of rhubarb in constipation rats. Six doses of rhubarb (0.135, 0.27, 0.81, 1.35, 4.05, and 8.1 g/kg) were examined to elucidate the laxative and fire-purging effects by pathological sections and UPLC-Q-TOF/MSE. The results showed that there existed serious lesions in the stomach and colon of model rats. And conditions were basically improved to some extent in rhubarb-treated groups. Through relative distance calculation based on metabolomics score plots, it suggested that the effective dose threshold (EC20–EC80 range) of rhubarb was from 0.31 to 4.5 g/kg (corresponding to 3.44–50.00 g in the clinic) in rat serum and 0.29–2.1 g/kg (corresponding to 3.22–23.33 g in the clinic) in feces. Then, 33 potential biomarkers were identified in total. Functional pathway analysis revealed that the alterations of these biomarkers were associated with 15 metabolic pathways, mainly including arachidonic acid metabolism, glycerophospholipid metabolism, steroid biosynthesis, primary bile acid biosynthesis and sphingolipid metabolism. Of note, different doses of rhubarb could alleviate endogenous disorders to varying degrees through regulating multiple perturbed pathways to the normal state, which might be in a dose-dependent manner and involved in therapeutic mechanisms. To sum up, integrated serum and fecal metabolomics obtained that rhubarb ranging from 0.31 to 2.1 g/kg is safe and effective for constipation treatment. Also, our findings showed that the robust metabolomics techniques would be promising to be more accurately used in the dose-effect studies of complex TCM, and to clarify syndrome pathogenesis and action mechanisms in Chinese medicine.