OBJECTIVETo investigate the metabolic profile of hydrocortisone-induced 'Kidney-yang deficiency syndrome'in rats and the intervention effects of Morinda officinalis.

METHODProton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H-NMR) technique was used to analyze the rat metabonome in serum. Orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) were processed to analyze the metabonome difference between the control and hydrocortisone treated samples. Twelve potential biomarkers were selected, via the parameter of variable importance in the projection (VIP). Principal components analysis (PCA) was employed to process the data from the M. officinalis. treatment group and the intervention effects of M. officinalis, was investigated through the selected potential biomarkers.

RESULTAfter hydrocortisone treatment, the energy metabolism, amino acids metabolism and gut microflora environment were seriously disturbed and transmethylation was surpressed. M. officinalis could effectively alleviate the disturbance of energy and amino acids metabolism and enhance transmethylation, but could not modulate the gut microflora environment.

CONCLUSIONThe results obtained suggested that metabonomic studies could better reflect the whole status of metabolism in bio-systems, and could be treated as a potential powerful approach in pharmacological studies and investigation of the essence of 'syndrome' in traditional Chinese medicine.