Rats' Metabolic Responses to Chronic Intervention with Cantonese Herbal
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
ics: O om pe ol n b A a c t c e e M s s You et al., Metabolomics 2016, 6:2 Metabolomics: Open Access DOI: 10.4172/2153-0769.1000178 ISSN: 2153-0769 Research Article Open Access Rats’ Metabolic Responses to Chronic Intervention with Cantonese Herbal Tea Rong You1,2*, Liang Yin1, Yanqing Guan1 and Lin Li2* 1College of Life Sciences, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, PR China 2College of Light Industry and Food Sciences, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, PR China Abstract Cantonese Herbal Tea (CHT) is consumed in south China to alleviate feelings of discomfort due to the over-heat and humidity in the body, but the related molecular mechanisms behind its effects remain obscure. The urinary metabolic responses to CHT over time in rats were investigated during a 38-day-period using GC-MS-based metabonomics. Integrated with student’s t-test and Orthogonal Projection on Latent Structures Discriminant Analysis (OPLS-DA) at each time point revealed that the process could be divided into two stages. In the first stage, the bioefficacy was characterized by elevated antioxidant activity and the depletion of oxidative stresses. However, the effect was reduced with time and replaced by a second stage characterized by the decreased flow of energy metabolism and an imbalance in gut microbiota. In conclusion, metabonomics study gained insight into the metabolic changes induced by CHT intake and the extent to which CHT intake influences the urinary metabolome, which also provides a powerful method for understanding the mechanism of CHT. Keywords: CHT; GC-MS; Metabonomics; Metabolic responses visualization, and integration. High-throughput analysis should be global, quantitative, robust, reproducible, accurate and interpretable. Introduction Hyphenated Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) Cantonese Herbal Tea (CHT) is an aqueous extract of a mixture is an analytical method that in recent years has evolved to enable of medicinal and edible plants and has a long history of consumption simultaneous analysis of many different metabolites in urine samples in South China. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) due to its high resolution and high sensitivity [17,18]. Additionally, theory, dietary intervention with CHT can detoxify and drive biological processes (such as metabolic response) are dynamic by nature sensations of heat and humidity from the body, which is considered to and have temporal progressions and dynamic sampling will improve the be an adaptation to local climatic conditions with subtropical weather detection of changes that occur over time following treatment. Thus, characterized by excessive heat and humidity [1]. It has been refined in this study a GC-MS-based metabonomics investigation has been as a functional and complementary drink to alleviate the symptoms of performed to track subtle, time-dependent fluctuations of metabolites stresses [2]. However, the high complexity in the composition of herbal that occurred in response to CHT and to unravel the complex tea, the multi-level biological effects as well as the subtle magnitude relationship between the consumption of CHT and its effects on health of modulating effects on, have posed obstacles for investigating and in rats over a 38-day chronic intervention period with an expectation evaluating the molecular mechanisms behind the medicinal properties that this treatment would produce cumulative effects [19,20]. of herbal tea [2-6]. Therefore, its beneficial and adverse effects are Materials and Methods substantially more difficult to monitor with reasonable precision using a reductionist approach [7]. Animal treatment As a holistic and systematic biological approach, metabonomics The animal experiment was performed at the SPF (Specific Pathogen involves the comprehensive study of molecular metabolites in a Free) animal laboratory at the Shenzhen Research Institute of Hong biological system under specified conditions and the interpretation of Kong University of Science & Technology, which has been certified by changes on metabolic pathways to decipher the physiological variation the Guangdong Science and Technology Committee with a laboratory in the whole organism [8]. Metabonomics has been found widespread animal facility certificate in accordance with the National Standard for applications in many areas including diseases, drugs, nutrition and plant the Quality of Laboratory Animals in China. Nineteen healthy male etc. [9-12]. In comparison of genomics and proteomics, metabonomics SPF (specific pathogen-free) Sprague Dawley (SD) rats approximately enables the monitoring of real end-point metabolic changes following physiological and pathophysiological stimuli [13] and interpret holistic, quantitative data on time-dependent metabolic variation in response to *Corresponding authors: Rong You, College of Life Sciences, South China a xenobiotic intervention, without prior knowledge of its composition. Normal University, Guangzhou, PR China, Tel: 86-20-85211372; E-mail: Recently, considerable efforts are being expended to enhance the [email protected] understanding of the mechanisms of and individual responses to Lin li, College of Light Industry and Food Sciences, South China University of dietary intervention with the aid of metabonomics [14-16]. However, Technology, Guangzhou, PR China, Tel: 86-20-87110249; E-mail: [email protected] current studies are still relatively simple because the active ingredients Received May 28, 2016; Accepted June 15, 2016; Published June 20, 2016 have known biochemical targets. Studies of CHT may be even further Citation: You R, Yin L, Guan Y, Li L (2016) Rats’ Metabolic Responses to Chronic complicated by the facts that its complex constituents have unknown Intervention with Cantonese Herbal Tea. Metabolomics 6: 178. doi:10.4172/2153- biochemical targets and the overall metabolic response to CHT will be 0769.1000178 the result of complex interactions. Copyright: © 2016 You R, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under Metabonomics involves the large-scale analysis of metabolites using the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and high-throughput techniques and bioinformatics tools for data analysis, source are credited. Metabolomics ISSN: 2153-0769 JOM an open access journal Volume 6 • Issue 2 • 1000178 Citation: You R, Yin L, Guan Y, Li L (2016) Rats’ Metabolic Responses to Chronic Intervention with Cantonese Herbal Tea. Metabolomics 6: 178. doi:10.4172/2153-0769.1000178 Page 2 of 6 3 months of age and weighing 200 ± 20 g were purchased from the sum of the ion fragments was performed prior to pattern recognition Guangdong Experimental Animal Center. All animals were housed analysis. in individual cages and had free access to water and food throughout the experiment. The light cycle consisted of 12 h of light and 12 h of Multivariate statistical data analysis dark, and the temperature was maintained at 22-24°C. After 7 days of Normalized data were introduced into SIMCA-P 11.5 Software for acclimatization, animals were transferred to individual metabolic cages multivariate statistical analysis. Mean centering calculates the average (one animal per cage) for urine collection. The rats were randomly spectrum of the data set and subtracts the average from each spectrum, divided into a control group (n=9) and a treated group (n=10). The with the goal of focusing on the fluctuating part of the data instead of treated group was orally fed 0.4 mg.g-1 of CHT daily for 38 days, while the original value. Pareto scaling weighs each variable by the square control rats received the same amount of water. Urine samples were root of its standard deviation, which amplifies the contribution of lower collected at days 0, 8, 14, 20, 26, 33 and 38 during the Herbal Tea concentration metabolites but not to such an extent that noise makes treatment period. Precipitated solids were removed by centrifugation a large contribution [22]. Thus, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) at 12,000 rpm, and urine samples were stored at -80°C prior to GC-MS was initially performed on mean-centered data to visualize general analysis. clustering and trends among the observations. Orthogonal projection Sample preparation on latent structures discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) was performed on Pareto scaled data to maximize the separation and identify Urine samples were thawed and 100 μl of urine was incubated biomarkers that differed between samples at different sampling time with 600 U urease (Type C-3, Sigma) at 37°C for 1 h. Then, 300 μl of points, where the normalized peak data were defined asX variables ice-cold methanol was added and mixed vigorously. The mixture was with interventions, i.e., not-fed or fed CHT, as Y variables. placed on ice for 20 min, followed by centrifugation to precipitate urease and protein. A total of 200 μl of the supernatant was separated Model validation and biomarker selection in OPLS-DA and evaporated until dry under a gentle stream of nitrogen gas. A total models of 100 μl of toluene (dried over anhydrous sodium sulfate) was added to A 7-fold cross validation strategy was applied to check the model the dry residue and then mixed and dried again under nitrogen gas. The validity and produce the cross validation parameter Q2. Permutation dried extract was derivatized first with 30 μl of dry pyridine (20 mg/ml) testing was also conducted to validate the predictability of the model for