A Metabolomics Study of the Volatile Oil from Prunella vulgaris L. on Pelvic Inflammatory Disease

Abstract Objective Pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) is one of the most common gynaecological diseases. Here, this thesis aims to investigate the therapeutic effects of Prunella vulgaris L. oil on the PID by using metabolomics based on gas chromatography- mass spectrometry (GC-MS) to address this challenge. Methods First, measurements of pro-inflammatory cytokines and histological analysis of the uterus were conducted to validate the successful generation of a PID rat model. Furthermore, the volatile oil from Prunella vulgaris L. was administered to treat PID rats. Serum samples were collected before and after treatment and analyzed by GC-MS to generate metabolite profiles for each sample. The information generated from the qualitative and quantitative analysis of these metabolites was applied to distinguish between the PID model and normal control groups. Results Some metabolites, such as acetic acid, succinic acid, glyceric acid, (R*,S*)-3,4-dihydroxybutanoic acid, 3-hydroxy- phenylacetic acid, D-ribose and myo-inositol showed a higher contribution in the classification model; thus, they can be considered as potential biomarkers. Furthermore, the therapeutic effect of the volatile oil extracted from Prunella vulgaris L. could also be visualized using GC-MS-based metabolomics. Conclusions The results show that metabolomics studies are invaluable for disease diagnosis and therapeutic effect estimation.