Pharmacodynamics and metabonomics study of Tianma Gouteng Decoction for treatment of spontaneously hypertensive rats with liver-yang hyperactivity syndrome

Essential hypertension is a prevalence chronic cardiovascular disease, which is treated by traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in China. Metabolomics approach has achieved more attention in pharmacology studies of natural products. Tianma Gouteng Decoction (TGD) is effective for the therapeutic of hypertension in China. We aimed to investigate antihypertension effect of TGD on spontaneous hypertension rat (SHR) with live-Yang hyperactivity hypertension (Gan Yang Shang Kang, GYSK) and explore the mechanism by metabolomics method. After establishing the GYSK-SHR model by giving aconite decoction, rats were randomly divided into four groups including model group, TGD qd group (66.88 mg/kg, once a day), TGD bid group (33.44 mg/kg, twice a day), TGD tid group (22.29 mg/kg, three times a day). Blood pressure (BP) and indexes of renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS system) were measured. Metabolic profiling of rat plasma samples was performed by UPLC-Q-TOF/MS, which was analyzed with principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least-squares-discriminate analysis (PLS-DA) to explore the relationship between metabolic pathways and hypertension. To better explain the role of TGD on hypertension, we detected three different frequencies of TGD treatment with equal dosage. TGD reduced the BP in GYSH-SHR model and regulated the serum levels of NE, Ang II, ET, 5-HT, CRP, RENIN and ALD especially at TGD bid group. By UPLC-Q-TOF/MS analysis, we found 47 potential biomarkers in GYSK-SHR rats from the plasma metabolites, among which 15 biomarkers were regulated by TGD. Consisted with the antihypertension activity, TGD bid group showed the significantly moderating effect on the regulating biomarkers. TGD exhibited the antihypertensive activity at the frequency of administration twice a day, which had the association with RAAS system and mediated 15 biomarkers by regulating metabolisms of glycerol phospholipid, sphingomyelin, energy and amino acid.