The enhancement mechanism of wine-processed Radix Scutellaria on NTG-induced migraine rats

To elucidate the increasing dissolution and enhancement mechanism of wine-processed Radix Scutellaria (RS) by fractal theory in nitroglycerin (NTG)-induced migraine rats. We prepared three RS from the process with 10% (S1), 15% (S2), 20% (S3) (v/m) rice wine. Mercury intrusion porosimetry and scanning electron microscope were employed to explore the internal structure of RS and the components dissolution of RS was analyzed by HPLC. Rats were randomly allocated into following groups and orally given different solutions for 10 days: normal group (NOR, normal saline), model group (MOD, normal saline), Tianshu capsule group (TSC, 0.425 mg/kg), ibuprofen group (IBU, 0.0821 mg/kg), crude RS group (CRU, 1.04 mg/kg) and wine-processed RS group (WP, 1.04 mg/kg) followed by bolus subcutaneously injection of NTG (10 mg/kg) to induce migraine model except NOR. Biochemical indexes (nitric oxide-NO, calcitonin-gene-related peptide-CGRP, and endothelin-ET) and c-fos positive cells were measured with commercial kits and immunohistochemical method, separately. Total surface area significantly increased in wine-processed RS (p < 0.05) while fractal dimension markedly decreased (p < 0.05) compared with crude RS. Additionally, S3 owned the highest increase of dissolution including the percentage increase of total extract, total flavonoids and main compounds (all p < 0.05 vs S1 and S2). Pharmacodynamic data showed c-fos positive cells significantly decreased (p < 0.05) in WP compared with MOD and the level of NO, CGRP, ET in WP was better than that of CRU. Wine-processed RS could be a promising candidate medicine for migraine treatment due to its increased component dissolution.

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