Deciphering the effective components of a TCM formula for atherosclerosis by three-dimensional pattern recognition of exogenous components correlated with endogenous metabolites

作者：Pei Lin, Zifei Qin, Xuanjing Chen, Xinya Zhang, Yihan Lin, Qi Wang, Liangliang He, Jianwen Guo, Dan‐Ping Xu, Rongrong He, Huanlin Wu, Xinsheng Yao, Zhihong Yao · 发表于：Journal of Ethnopharmacology · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1016/j.jep.2025.119647 · 被引用次数：5 · 研究领域：Traditional Chinese Medicine Studies、Metabolomics and Mass Spectrometry Studies、Traditional Chinese Medicine Analysis

Ethnopharmacological relevance The deciphering of effective components is crucial for understanding the role they play and how they function in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) formulae. However, this remains a significant challenge for these complex systems with multiple components, targets, and pathways, despite their therapeutic benefits. Aim of the study Three-dimensional pattern recognition of exogenous components correlated with endogenous metabolites was proposed to discover the effective components of Gualou-Xiebai-Banxia decoction (GXB), a famous classical TCM formula for effective improvement of atherosclerosis (AS). Materials and methods The potential effective exogenous components were determined by three-dimensional pattern recognition of abundance, bioavailability and AS-related activity. The efficacy of GXB in attenuating AS was evaluated using an Apolipoprotein E-deficient (ApoE −/− ) mice model subjected to a high-fat diet regimen. Plasma metabolomics was developed to dig out GXB efficacy-related endogenous metabolites. Next, the potential effective exogenous components and GXB efficacy-related endogenous metabolites were combined with AS targets to develop correlation analysis, so as to explore candidate effective components and potential mechanisms of GXB. Further, the effective components were validated by oxidized low-density lipoprotein-induced RAW 264.7 macrophages. Results A total of 30 potential effective exogenous components in GXB were ascertained...