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Multipronged Therapeutic Effects of Chinese Herbal Medicine Sini San in the Treatment of Depressive Disorder
Author(s) -
Wang Yong,
Bai Yiqin,
Nugent Colleen A.,
Zhu Lixin,
Wang Tian,
Zhu Ruixin,
Wang Wei
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.31.1_supplement.1001.6
Subject(s) - depression (economics) , medicine , transcriptome , major depressive disorder , traditional chinese medicine , gene , gene expression , endocrinology , hippocampus , bioinformatics , oncology , biology , genetics , pathology , alternative medicine , amygdala , economics , macroeconomics
Background The traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) Sini San has been known to be effective in depressive disorder treatment. Clinical studies and preclinical researches in human and animal models have confirmed the effects of Sini San on depressive disorder. However, the molecular mechanism of how Sini San affecting depressive disorder is still unclear. This study aimed to reveal the therapeutic mechanism of Sini San in depression by global transcriptomics analysis, and to understand the traditional Chinese medical theory “homogeny of liver and brain” for Sini San from the molecular level. Methods We performed systematical analysis on RNA expression profiles in hippocampus, hypothalamus and hepatic tissue with a depression Sprague‐Dawley (SD) rats model induced by chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS). We compared the depression model group (N=20) with naive rats as controls (N=20) and with the depression model with Sini San treatment group (N=20) respectively. Bioinformatics methods including differential expression analysis, gene enrichment and expression correlation analysis were conducted. Results We found that the expression of 77, 724, 173 genes were influenced by Sini San treatment in depression individuals in hippocampus, hypothalamus and hepatic tissue respectively. Function of these differentially expressed genes (DEGs) covered depression‐associated genes and was consistent with established depression pathology. Among these DEGs, expression of 496 genes were reversed by Sini San, which made the expression profiles of Sini San treatment groups more similar to healthy controls than to depression model groups. Specifically, a multi‐target mechanism involving immune response and steroid synthesis was proposed to explain how Sini San exerts positive influence on depressive disorder. Hub genes like Ciita, Lcp2 and Dusp2 in immunity, and Hmgcr and Cyp1a2 in steroid metabolism exhibited significant response to Sini San treatment. Moreover, to explore the TCM theory which holds that liver in Chinese Medicine includes both anatomical liver and brain, the correlation between brain and liver in depressive disorder treated by in Sini San was investigated. Lcp2 and Cyp1a2 are highly correlated genes in brain and liver, and therefore also identified as the most important components of the therapeutic mechanism of Sini San. Conclusion The results of the study for the first time provide a systematic molecular insight into the therapeutic mechanism of Sini San in alleviating depressive disorder. Support or Funding Information This work was financially supported, in part, by the Grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81302908, 81530100, 81473456, 81503379 and 81470191), Beijing Natural Science Foundation (No.7142099), Fok Ying Tung Education Foundation (No. 151044), and excellent young scientist foundation of BUCM (No.2016‐JYB‐XJ003, 2015‐JYB‐QNJSZX001 and 2015‐JYB‐XYQ001).