SQYZ granules, a traditional Chinese herbal, attenuate cognitive deficits in AD transgenic mice by modulating on multiple pathogenesis processes.

The pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) involves multiple contributing factors, including amyloid β (Aβ) peptide aggregation, inflammation, oxidative stress, and others. Effective therapeutic drugs for treating AD are urgently needed. SQYZ granules (SQYZ), a Chinese herbal preparation, are mainly composed of the ginsenoside Rg1, astragaloside A and baicalin, and have been widely used to treat dementias for decades in China. In this study, we found the therapeutic effects of SQYZ on the cognitive impairments in an AD mouse model, the β-amyloid precursor protein (APP) and presenilin-1 (PS1) double-transgenic mouse, which co-expresses five familial AD mutations (5XFAD); next, we further explored the underlying mechanism and observed that after SQYZ treatment, the Aβ burden and inflammatory reactions in the brain were significantly attenuated. Through a proteomic approach, we found that SQYZ regulated the expression of 27 proteins, mainly those related to neuroinflammation, stress responses and energy metabolism. These results suggested that SQYZ has the ability to improve the cognitive impairment and ameliorate the neural pathological changes in AD, and the therapeutic mechanism may be related to the modulation of multiple processes related to AD pathogenesis, especially anti-neuroinflammation, promotion of stress recovery and improvement of energy metabolism.