Lipidomics study on intervention by Uncaria on hepatic metabolic disorder in spontaneously hypertensive rats

In this paper, the lipidomics was used to analyze the changes to address how Uncaria interrupts lipid metabolism in the liver of spontaneously hypertensive rats, and to explore the mechanism of action of Uncaria. All the experiments were approved by the animal protection and use committee of Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. UHPLC-Q Extractive orbitrap high-resolution mass spectrometry was used to collect lipid metabolite information of the rat livers. Through pattern recognition, matters with noticeable differences were recognized. Mass spectrum and data base searching helped to identify the potential biomarkers. Pattern recognition results indicated that the rats from control versus SHR group showed clear differences. Compared with the rats from the control group, there are decreases in sphosphatidylcholine, phosphatidic acid, diacylglycerol and sphingomyelin in rats from the SHR group, however lysophosphatidylcholine, triglyceride, linoleic acid, arachidonic acid and ceramide are increased. Uncaria could regulate the disorder of lipid metabolism by interfering with glycerophospholipid, sphingolipid, linoleic acid, and arachidonic acid metabolic pathways. This study provided the mechanistic understanding of the impact of Uncaria on lipid metabolism and revealed the lipid metabolism pathways affected to offer the explanation for the complex mechanism of action.