Danggui Buxue Tang (DBT) is a famous Chinese medicinal decoction. Mechanism of DBT
action is wide ranging and unclear. Exploring new ways of treatment with DBT is useful.
Sprague-Dawley(SD) rats were randomly divided into 3 groups including control (NC,
Saline), the DBT (at a dose of 8.10 g-kg -1 ), and blood deficiency (BD) (Cyclophosphamide
(APH)- and Cyclophosphamide(CTX)-induced anaemia). A metabolomics approach using Liquid
Chromatography-Quadrupole-Time-of-Flight/Mass Spectrometry (LC/Q-TOFMS) was developed
to perform the plasma metabolic profiling analysis and differential metabolites were
screened according to the multivariate statistical analysis comparing the NC and BD
groups, and the hub metabolites were outliers with high scores of the centrality indices.
Anaemia disease-related protein target and compound of DBT databases were constructed.
The TCMSP, ChemMapper and STITCH databases were used to predict the protein targets
of DBT. Using the Cytoscape 3.2.1 to establish a phyto-chemical component-target protein
interaction network and establish a component, protein and hub metabolite protein-protein
interaction (PPI) network and merging the three PPI networks basing on BisoGenet.
The gene enrichment analysis was used to analyse the relationship between proteins
based on the relevant genetic similarity by ClueGO. The results shown DBT effectively
treated anaemia in vivo. 11 metabolic pathways are involved in the therapeutic effect
of DBT in vivo ; S-adenosyl-L-methionine, glycine, L-cysteine, arachidonic acid (AA)
and phosphatidylcholine(PC) were screened as hub metabolites in APH- and CTX-induced
anaemia. A total of 288 targets were identified as major candidates for anaemia progression.
The gene-set enrichment analysis revealed that the targets are involved in iron ion
binding, haemopoiesis, reactive oxygen species production, inflammation and apoptosis.
The results also showed that these targets were associated with iron ion binding,
haemopoiesis, ROS production, apoptosis, inflammation and related signalling pathways.
DBT can promote iron ion binding and haemopoiesis activities, restrain inflammation,
production of reactive oxygen, block apoptosis, and contribute significantly to the
DBT treat anaemia.