OBJECTIVETo investigate the effect of active components of Danshen and Shanzha of different matching proportions on atherosclerosis (AS), in the expectation of obtaining the optimum combination method.

METHODAtherosclerotic rats were fed with high fat diet, and injected with vitamin D3 and ovalbumin. Aqueous extracts of Danshen (DSA) and Shanzha (SZA) and lipophilic extracts of danshen (DSL) were adopted for a low, medium and high-dose orthogonal experiment, to observe the effect of their different matching proportions on lipid level, oxidative stress, endothelial function and inflammatory reaction. The principal component analysis and cluster analysis were adopted for the multi-objective optimization of experimental results.

RESULTCompared with the model group, all of samples with different proportions of DSA, DSL and SZA showed effect in lowering lipid level, scavenging free radicals, reducing endothelial dysfunction and inhibiting inflammation. According to the variance analysis, DSA2-SZA2-DSL1, DSA3-SZA2-DSL1, DSA3-SZA3 -DSL3 and DSA3-SZA1-DSL1 were the optimal proportions for lowering lipid level, scavenging free radicals, reducing endothelial dysfunction and inhibiting inflammation, respectively. According to the results of the multi-objective optimization, DSA2-SZA1-DSL2 was the optimal proportions of anti-AS.

CONCLUSIONAll of active components of Danshen and Shanzha of different matching proportions show the anti-AS effect in rats to varying degrees, but with different focus in different matching proportions.