ABSTRACT
Depression is a common emotional disorder that seriously affects people's life and health all over the world. The pathogenesis of depression is complex, and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) for antidepressants has a good therapeutic effect because of its multi-component, multi-pathway, and multi-target action mode. At present, the anti-depressive mechanism of TCM has not been fully clarified, but it is clear that depression is closely related to metabolic health. Therefore, in order to further explore the anti-depressive mechanism of TCM, this paper proposes research strategies on the anti-depressive mechanism of TCM based on functional metabolomics from the perspective of metabolism, the potential biomarkers of depression are analyzed with the help of multi-omics combined analysis technology, and the functional molecules of TCM for antidepressant are studied. Molecular biology techniques are used to accurately capture the molecular interactions between biomarkers of depression and functional compounds, which identify effective drug targets and further elucidate the biochemical functions and related mechanisms involved in depression metabolic disorders. This paper systematically reviews the research strategies and applications of functional metabolomics in the anti-depressive mechanisms of TCM, expounds on the core value of functional metabolomics, and summarizes the current research status and hot issues of TCM for antidepressants in recent years, providing new methods and new ideas for the study of mechanisms of TCM with the help of functional metabolomics.
ABSTRACT
Stable isotope tracer metabolomics tracks and analyzes the whole metabolic process of the body through the tracer atoms, which belongs to the frontier technology in the field of biomedicine. This technology is of great significance and value for explaining the pathogenesis of diseases, finding biomarkers of diseases and drug action targets. Taking the mechanism of glucose catabolism disorder in depression as an example, this paper systematically expounds the stable isotope tracer metabolomics technology and its application. The research idea of stable isotope tracer metabolomics based on unmarked metabolomics was put forward, and the research strategy of biological significance interpretation from four dimensions of metabolite isotope abundance, key metabolic enzymes, metabolic flow direction and metabolite flow was given, which broke through the bottleneck of stable isotope tracer metabolomics research technology based on overall animal experiment, and provided scientific basis for the promotion and application of this technology.
ABSTRACT
Proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR) based metabolomics was applied to characterize the fecal metabolic profiles of chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS)-depression (CUMS-D) and CUMS-resilience (CUMS-R) rats. The fecal biomarkers and metabolic pathways involved in CUMS-D and CUMS-R were screened and identified, revealing the underlying mechanisms of two different responses of the body to the same stresses. Firstly, the classic depression model, i.e. CUMS, was constructed. According to the fecal metabolomics profiles, the model rats were divided into two groups, i.e. the CUMS-D group and the CUMS-R group. And then, the depression statuses of CUMS-D rats and CUMS-R rats were verified by their sucrose preference rates. Lastly, multivariate data analysis was applied to clarify the fecal biomarkers and corresponding metabolic pathways involving in CUMS-D and CUMS-R. The results show that compared with the control rats, the sucrose preference rates of CUMS-D rats were significantly reduced. By contrast, the sucrose preference rates of CUMS-R rats had no significant difference. At the same time, CUMS-D and CUMS-R showed both unique and shared biomarkers and pathways. Three pathways are significantly related to CUMS-D, including taurine and hypotaurine metabolism, alanine, aspartate and glutamate metabolism, and arginine and proline metabolism. Glycerolipid metabolism and tryptophan metabolism are specific pathways related to CUMS-R. This study explores the mechanisms of the emergence of susceptible and resilience of rats under the same stimulus from a metabolomics perspective. The current findings provide not only a new perspective for studying depression, and personalized and precision treatments in clinic, but also the research and development of antidepressants.
ABSTRACT
Depression is a common emotional mental disorder. Patients not only continuously showed depression, pessimism and apathy in mood, but also have gastrointestinal symptoms such as anorexia and constipation in body. Widely attention has been also received in the potential biological role of gut microbiota in the pathogenesis of depression. It plays an important role in the interaction between the intestine and the brain, not only affecting the intestinal barrier function, but also maintaining the homeostasis of host through the microbiota-gut-brain axis. In recent years, the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has the advantages of obvious therapeutic effects and few side effects when treating neuropsychiatric diseases, such as depression. The pharmacological mechanism of TCM exerting antidepressant effects by regulating the structure of gut microbiota, reducing displacement, and maintaining the normal function of gut microbiota has been also widely concerned. By investigating the relevant literature in recent years, this paper summarizes the antidepressant effect of TCM in different directions such as Chinese medicine monomer, single medicine and compound medicine. And this paper reviews the antidepressant effects and mechanisms of TCM at different levels, such as the correction of gut microbiota structure, the regulation of immunity, the transplantation of gut microbiota and the regulation of its metabolites. This paper will provide a basis for further explaining the mechanism of gut microbiota in depression and the mechanism of antidepressant effect of TCM.
ABSTRACT
The antidepressant effect of Xiaoyaosan has been demonstrated. It is of value to explore the biological mechanism of Xiaoyaosan in the treatment of depression from the perspective of functional modules by using the method of functional module division of the metabolic network. The differential metabolites and related enzymes and proteins regulated by Xiaoyaosan were identified in the database. Pathway enrichment analysis and crosstalk pathway analysis of Xiaoyaosan regulated metabolites was carried out. A network of differentially regulated metabolites and their enzymes and proteins was constructed by using the STRING tool. The CNM decomposition algorithm was used to extract the functional modules of the network and enrichment analysis of functional modules was carried out. The results show that Xiaoyaosan regulates 97 differential metabolites, 234 related enzymes and 258 depression-related proteins. The pathways crosstalk analysis was divided into two sub-networks, one of which is related to the neural system and cell signal transduction, the other is related to the endocrine system and metabolic pathways. KEGG pathway enrichment analysis of the network and 9 functional modules extracted by the CNM algorithm shows that module 1 and module 3 belong to the pathways that can be enriched into more pathways with fewer proteins. The corresponding functions of these pathways include the endocrine system, amino acid metabolism, the nervous system and signal transduction. In this study, pathway crosstalk analysis and metabolic network module division strategies were used to explain the biological mechanism of Xiaoyaosan in the treatment of depression, providing ideas and methods for in-depth study of the pharmacological mechanism of this traditional Chinese medicine from the perspective of metabolic regulation.
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Depression is a serious mental illness with a high incidence. At present, we do not fully understand the specific pathological mechanisms of depression, and the efficacy of drug treatments is very limited. Recent studies have shown that epigenetic changes that occur in specific brain regions may be a key mechanism by which environmental factors to interact with individuals to influence the risk of depression. Therefore, drugs that target epigenetic regulation may become a new direction for the development of antidepressants. Histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACi) are a class of compounds that inhibit histone deacetylase activity, which has been reported to be associated with depression; this article addresses the use of HDACi in preclinical studies, and their potential therapeutic role and limitations of use in depression.
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The incidence rate of depression is increasing, but its pathological mechanism is still unknown. More evidence shows that the occurrence and development of depression is closely related to the changes of gut microbiome. However, due to the huge differences in bacterial composition among individuals caused by different environmental factors, researchers usually need a large number of samples to get reliable results. Experimental animal models play an important role in the pathogenesis of diseases and the mechanism of drug action because of their highly consistent background, controllable experimental environment, and the characteristics of artificial intervention. Therefore, the selection of appropriate experimental animal models can not only simulate the clinical symptoms of human depression, but also reveal the causal relationship between clinical characteristics and gut microbiome changes. In this review, the development and application of fecal microbiota transplantation technology, the close relationship between flora and depression, the application of humanized fecal microbiota transplantation experimental animal model in the study of depression, as well as the preparation methods and key technologies of humanized fecal microbiota were summarized, which provided a reference for the research on the pathogenesis of depression and the mechanism of antidepressant drugs of humanized fecal microbiota transplantation experimental animal model. This review provides a reference for the reasonable application of this aspect.
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Depression is one of the diseases with the highest disability rate in the world. A large number of studies have shown that the intake of unsaturated fatty acids can deal with depression while chronic overconsumption of saturated fatty acids is a risk factor for depression. It was suggested that the mechanism of saturated fatty acids inducing depression is related to the following four aspects: regulating the function which links to depression in whole brain and specific brain regions, including the hippocampus, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, the striatum, and the prefrontal cortex; stimulating the secretion of inflammatory factors; affecting the balance and function of metabolic regulatory hormones, including leptin, adiponectin, glucocorticoid, and insulin; inducing the disturbance of intestinal flora. This article reviews the relationship between dietary fatty acids and depression, and the possible mechanisms by which saturated fatty acids induce depression from the four aspects mentioned above.
ABSTRACT
Depression was a complex and difficult to regulate disease, which was closely related to purinergic system and purine metabolism disorder. Although there had been studies to improve depression by regulating purinergic system, the mechanism of action was complex and needed to be sorted out. Recently, a large number of studies had found that the addition of exogenous purine metabolites adenosine, inosine and guanosine had a significant antidepressant effect, indicating that regulating the level of purine substances in purine metabolism could also improve depression, which was of great significance to the further study of the pathogenesis and treatment of depression. In view of this, this study reviewed the relationship between purinergic system or purine metabolism and depression, in order to provide a reference for the further study of the pathogenesis of depression.
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Depression is a common mental illness with mood disorders as the main clinical feature. In recent years numerous studies have shown that mitochondrial function and structure are abnormal in patients with depression, and changes in mitochondrial ultrastructure can lead to energy metabolism disorders in the body. It is suggested that 'mitochondrial energy metabolism disorder' may be the pathogenesis of depression. This paper reviews the intrinsic association of mitochondrial energy metabolism with depression and notes potential mechanisms from the standpoint of mitochondrial structure and function on the molecular level. We provide a reference for understanding the pathogenesis of depression and identifying the possible targets of antidepressant drugs.
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This study aimed to investigate the effect of the petroleum ether fraction of Xiaoyaosan (XY-A) in a rat depression model with consideration of an underlying mechanism based on gut microbiota and metabolomics. All procedures involving animal treatment were approved according to the Committee on the Ethics of Animal Experiments of Shanxi University. A rat model was established using the chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS) procedure and XY-A and venlafaxine (positive control) were used as intervention drugs. Sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene combined with LC-MS metabolomics was used to investigate the effects of XY-A on gut microbiota and metabolites in CUMS-induced depression, and Pearson correlation analysis was carried out on gut microbiota and metabolites. The results showed that XY-A significantly improved the depression-like behavior of CUMS rats and restored the level of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in the hippocampus. Gut microbiota analysis revealed that XY-A can increase the diversity of microbial species in CUMS rats and significantly restored the relative abundance of intestinal Rothia [Prevotella], with effects on intestinal inflammation and the production of short-chain fatty acids. Cecal content metabolomics identified twenty biomarkers that were altered by depression, whereas administration of XY-A ameliorated the changes in seventeen metabolites, with the most strongly affected metabolic pathways being linoleic acid metabolism, taurine and hypotaurine metabolism, primary bile acid biosynthesis, and arginine and proline metabolism. Correlation analysis further showed that there was a strong relationship between the gut microbiota and the cecal content metabolites. In summary, XY-A may exert antidepressant effects by regulating the composition of the gut microbiota and the metabolites and pathways of the cecum. The results provide a reference for the potential molecular mechanism of antidepressant action of XY-A.
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Two-pore domain potassium channels (K2P) make up a subfamily of potassium channels discovered in the 1990s, and TREK-1 is the most widely studied subtype of K2P. TREK-1 is widely expressed in the body and especially in the central nervous system, where its main role is to control cell excitability and maintain the membrane potential below the depolarization threshold. It thereby participates in regulating various physiological and pathological processes. TREK-1 is also a potential drug target in many diseases. It is known that many marketed drugs can affect the function of TREK-1, but currently there are no specific TREK-1 modulators or drugs. We review the structure, distribution and regulation of TREK-1 and focus on recent progress in understanding the pharmacology of TREK-1 and its role in neuroprotection, depression, anesthesia and epilepsy. The research status of TREK-1 modulators is discussed.
ABSTRACT
Depression, a chronic syndrome with low mood, pessimism, cognitive and sleep disorders, is characterized by high incidence, high suicide rate, low consultation and treatment rate. 40%-50% of the risk of depression comes from genes, so studying on gene abnormalities serves as an important part of the research in the internal causes of depression, among which the receptor gene abnormalities are crucial factors. The study of potential receptor gene loci is expected to be new target for the treatment of depression in the future, which can provide theoretical basis for the early diagnosis, prevention and treatment of depression.
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Ginseng is a traditional Chinese medicine known as the "king of herbs" since ancient time in China. It was found in animal experiments that total saponins, ginsenoside monomers or glycosides from ginseng extraction all showed antidepressant effects in chronic unpredictable stress, corticosterone or lipopolysaccharide induced depression models. Taking ginsenosides as the focus, we reviewed the antidepressive mechanisms from the perspectives of various hypotheses, such as regulations of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, monoamine neurotransmitter and neuroplasticity related to the pathogenesis of depression. The mechanism, target and pharmacodynamic targets of ginsenosides for anti-depression were summarized, in order to provide references for multi-targets and multi-level development of new anti-depression drugs, and improvement of diagnosis and treatment of depression from the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine and natural products.
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In rodents, bilateral olfactory bulbectomy (OBX) results in a series of changes in behaviors and neurobiology, similar to the clinical symptoms of depression in patients. These changes can be reversed by chronic but not acute treatment of antidepressants. Owing to the face, construct and predictive validities, the OBX model has been used to investigate the mechanisms of depression, screen for antidepressants, and reveal the mechanism of drug action. In addition, there are certain features in OBX animals resembling those of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), including the impaired learning and memory ability and the accumulation of amyloid-β protein (Aβ). In this review, we present the association between olfaction and depression or AD, the surgical procedure of OBX, the behavioral features of OBX animals, the abnormal changes in cortex and hippocampus, and the application of this model for studying depression and AD. These lines of information are important for the development of antidepressant and anti-dementia drugs using this model.
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Objective To investigate the clinical efficacy of auricular plaster therapy plus scalp acupuncture in treating post-stroke depression.Methods One hundred and twenty-five patients with post-stroke depression were randomly allocated to group A of 42 cases, group B of 42 cases and group C of 41 cases. Group A received scalp acupuncture alone; group B, auricular plaster therapy alone; group C, auricular plaster therapy plus scalp acupuncture. The Hamilton Depression Scale (HAMD) score was recorded in the three groups before and after treatment. The clinical therapeutic effects were compared between the three groups. Results There was a statistically significant pre-/post-treatment difference in the HAMD score in the three groups after two months of treatment (P0.05).Conclusion Auricular plaster therapy plus scalp acupuncture is an effective way to treat post-stroke depression.
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Objective To explore the quality of life and its related factors of patients with asthma. Methods 60 asthma patients were assessed by Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression(HAMD),Hamilton Rating Scale for Anxiety(HAMA)and the Short-Form-36 Health Survey(SF-36). Results Except physical functioning (PF) domain, the SF-36 score of asthma patients was significantly lower than that of normal. The illness course longer than 4 years had lower score, so did the quality of life. The SF-36 score of asthma patients with depression symptom and anxiety symptom was lower than those without depression symptom and anxiety symptom. Conclusions The asthma patients' quality of life are worse than those of normal, especially the patients with long illness course, depression symptom and anxiety symptom.