Metabolic effects of Hedyotis diffusa on rats bearing W alker 256 tumor revealed by NMR ‐based metabolomics

Hedyotis diffusa , a traditional Chinese herbal medicine, is widely used for oncotherapy and shows a positive effect in the clinical treatment. But its mechanism of anticancer activities is complicated and unclear. This study was undertaken to assess the therapeutic effects and reveal detailed mechanisms of H .  diffusa for oncotherapy. A Walker 256 tumor‐bearing rat model was established, and metabolomic profiles of plasma and urine were obtained from 1 H NMR technique. Multivariate statistical analysis methods were used to characterize the discriminating metabolites between control (C), Walker 256 tumor‐bearing rats model (M), and H .  diffusa treatment (H) groups. Finally, 13 and 10 metabolomic biomarkers in urine and plasma samples were further identified as characteristic metabolites in M group, whereas H group showed a partial metabolic balance recovered, such as ornithine, N ‐acetyl‐ l ‐aspartate, l ‐aspartate, and creatinine in urine samples, and acetate, lactate, choline, l ‐glutamine, and 3‐hydroxybutyrate in plasma samples. On the basis of the methods above, we hypothesized H .  diffusa treatment reduced the injury caused by Walker 256 tumor and maintained a metabolic balance. Our study demonstrated that this method provided new insights into metabolic alterations in tumor‐bearing biosystems and researching on the effects of H .  diffusa on the endogenous metabolism in tumor‐bearing rats.