Chinese medicine, Qijudihuang pill, mediates cholesterol metabolism and regulates gut microbiota in high-fat diet-fed mice, implications for age-related macular degeneration

Frontiers in Immunology

Immunology

Aileen Wong¹  John A. Craft¹  Xinzhi Zhou¹  Khalid S. Ibrahim²  Xu-Dong Yu³  Zhiming He³  Xing Li³  Yanqun Cao³  Xinhua Shu⁴  Zhoujin Tan⁵  Yi Wu⁵ 

[1] Department of Biological and Biomedical Sciences , Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow, United Kingdom;Department of Biological and Biomedical Sciences , Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow, United Kingdom;Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Zakho, Zakho, Iraq;Pu Ai Medical School, Shaoyang University, Shaoyang, Hunan, China;Pu Ai Medical School, Shaoyang University, Shaoyang, Hunan, China;Department of Biological and Biomedical Sciences , Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow, United Kingdom;Department of Vision Science , Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow, United Kingdom;School of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Hunan University of Chinese Medicine, Changsha, Hunan, China;

关键词: traditional Chinese medicine;    Qijudihuang pill;    age-related macular degeneration;    cholesterol;    oxidative stress;    inflammation;    gut microbiota;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fimmu.2023.1274401

 received in 2023-08-08, accepted in 2023-09-21,  发布年份 2023

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundTraditional Chinese Medicines have been used for thousands of years but without any sound empirical basis. One such preparation is the Qijudihuang pill (QP), a mixture of eight herbs, that has been used in China for the treatment of various conditions including age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the most common cause of blindness in the aged population. In order to explain the mechanism behind the effect of QP, we used an AMD model of high-fat diet (HFD) fed mice to investigate cholesterol homeostasis, oxidative stress, inflammation and gut microbiota.MethodsMice were randomly divided into three groups, one group was fed with control diet (CD), the other two groups were fed with high-fat-diet (HFD). One HFD group was treated with QP, both CD and the other HFD groups were treated with vehicles. Tissue samples were collected after the treatment. Cholesterol levels in retina, retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), liver and serum were determined using a commercial kit. The expression of enzymes involved in cholesterol metabolism, inflammation and oxidative stress was measured with qRT-PCR. Gut microbiota was analyzed using 16S rRNA sequencing.ResultsIn the majority of the lipid determinations, analytes were elevated by HFD but this was reversed by QP. Cholesterol metabolism including the enzymes of bile acid (BA) formation was suppressed by HFD but again this was reversed by QP.BAs play a major role in signaling between host and microbiome and this is disrupted by HFD resulting in major changes in the composition of colonic bacterial communities. Associated with these changes are predictions of the metabolic pathway complexity and abundance of individual pathways. These concerned substrate breakdowns, energy production and the biosynthesis of pro-inflammatory factors but were changed back to control characteristics by QP.ConclusionWe propose that the ability of QP to reverse these HFD-induced effects is related to mechanisms acting to lower cholesterol level, oxidative stress and inflammation, and to modulate gut microbiota.

【 授权许可】

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Copyright © 2023 Cao, Ibrahim, Li, Wong, Wu, Yu, Zhou, Tan, He, Craft and Shu