Metabolomics study of intervention effects of Wen-Xin-Formula using ultra high-performance liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry coupled with pattern recognition approach

Metabolomics is a new approach based on the systematic study of the full complement of small molecular metabolites in a biological sample. It could map the perturbations of early biochemical changes on diseases and hence provides an opportunity to develop predictive biomarkers that can result in earlier intervention and possess valuable insights into the mechanisms of diseases. Given the poor diagnosis of myocardial ischemia syndrome (heart-qi deficiency, HQD), biomarkers of great significance are urgently needed. Fortunately, metabolomics may offer the possibility of identifying marker metabolites and pathways activated in HQD. This paper was designed to explore globally metabolomics characters of the HQD and the therapeutic effects of traditional Chinese medicine Wen-Xin-Formula (WXF). Serum biochemical analysis and histopathological examinations were simultaneously performed. Global metabolic profiling with UHPLC/MS (ultra high-performance liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry), multivariate analysis and database searching were performed to discover differentiating metabolites. Seventeen biomarkers were identified and pathway analysis tools suggest that the glycolysis or gluconeogenesis metabolism, biosynthesis of unsaturated fatty acids metabolism, fatty acid biosynthesis and purine metabolism networks were acutely perturbed by HQD. Of note, WXF has potential pharmacological effect through regulating multiple perturbed pathways to normal state, correlates well to the assessment of biochemistry and histopathological assay. Overall, this study successfully demonstrated that the power of metabolomics in unraveling protective effects of WXF and these findings may help better understand the mechanisms of disease, and the underlying pathophysiologic processes.