Huangqi Jianzhong Tang ameliorated phospholipase A2 and glycerophospholipids metabolism against chronic atrophic gastritis rats

Huangqi Jianzhong Tang (HQJZ), a famous classic traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) formula, could protect metabolic perturbations of carbohydrates and amino acids induced by chronic atrophic gastritis (CAG) in our previous metabolomic study based on nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technology. The present study was designed to improve the metabolome coverage to investigate the regulative mechanism of HQJZ against CAG through ultra-high-performance liquid chromatographys coupled with quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-Q/TOF-MS) based-metabolomic approach. The results revealed that thirteen potential biomarkers were significantly regulated by HQJZ, which were involved into bile acid biosynthesis, sphingolipid metabolism, fatty acid metabolism and glycerophospholipid metabolism. Partial least square regression analysis (PLS-RA) and MetPA analysis revealed that glycerophospholipid metabolism was the most relevant efficacy of HQJZ against CAG. The enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and systemDock analysis also demonstrated that HQJZ could significantly inhibit the expression of phospholipase A2 (PLA2), which was played key role in the glycerophospholipid metabolism. The results demonstrated that HQJZ exerted anti-CAG effects through the inhibition of PLA2 and glycerophospholipid metabolism, which highlighted the linking between the upstream protein expression and the downstream endogenous metabolites in molecular pharmacology.