Effects of Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi flowers on D-galactose induced aging in rats based on serum metabolomics

This study aimed to evaluate the antioxidant activities of Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi flowers by measuring the scavenging activity of hydroxyl radical and superoxide anion radical. Aging of rats was induced by D-galactose and protective effects of Scutellaria flower extract (SFE) at different doses were evaluated by locomotor activities. To explore the mechanism of SFE, metabolomic technique combined with multivariate statistical methods was used to analyze the profile of metabolites from rat serum and quantify the levels of glutamine and glutamate in the serum. All research procedures were approved according to the Committee on the Ethics of Animal Experiments of Shanxi University. The results showed that high-dose of SFE had antioxidant activity in vitro, and could ameliorate the aging behavior of rats. A total of 9 potential biomarkers related to aging were found, pointing to the involvement of 7 metabolic pathways.