Metabolomic strategy to study therapeutic and synergistic effects of tanshinone IIA, salvianolic acid B and ginsenoside Rb1 in myocardial ischemia rats

Abstract Aim of the study Tanshinone IIA (T), salvianolic acid B (S) and ginsenoside Rb1 (G) are the three major active ingredients of Compound Danshen Formula (CDF) for its protective effects on myocardial ischemia (MI). In this study, we aimed to investigate therapeutic and synergistic effects of TSG (combination of T, S and G) on MI rats with metabolomic strategy. Materials and methods MI model were induced in Sprague-Dawley rats by left anterior descending coronary artery ligation. MI rats were respectively administrated T, S, G, TSG and CDF. Plasma was analyzed by ultra-performance liquid chromatography/quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UPLC-Q-TOF-MS). Partial least squares discriminate analysis (PLS-DA) models were built to evaluate the therapeutic and synergistic effects of TSG at whole level. 22 MI biomarkers in rat plasma were also investigated to explain that. Results TSG brings nearly equal therapeutic effects on MI as CDF and it plays more stable regulated action on those 22 identified metabolites than single compound. Conclusions Overall, there were few methods for the study of synergistic effects of Chinese medicine. Our results suggested that metabolomics offers a new idea for Chinese medicine research.