¹H NMR-based metabolomics study of intervention effects of leonurine on acute myocardial ischemia in rats

Aim: To investigate metabolomic profiles of acute myocardial ischemia (AMI) in rat plasma and explore the intervention effects and its mechanism of leonurine using a metabolomics approach based on nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). Methods: The plasma metabolomic characteristics in rats of sham group, AMI model group, and leonurine-treated group were detected by ¹H NMR, and the different metabolites between AMI group and sham group or leonurine-treated group were analyzed by pattern recognition and multivariate data analysis. Results: Orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) demonstrated that six metabolites related to AMI were screened out, including alanine, lysine, glycine, creatine, N-acetyl glycoprotein, and O-acetyl glycoprotein and all their levels were elevated in AMI group compared to sham group. Treatment of leonurine decreased the levels of alanine, lysine, and glycine, and increased the levels of choline, phosphocholine, and scyllo-inositol compared with the model group. Conclusions: Leonurine can improve amino acid metabolism disorder under AMI conditions and enhance the function of choline and inositol pathway, which may explain its cardioprotective effect. The developed metabolomics approach in this study is a powerful tool for the investigation of the cardioprotective effect of leonurine and provide a new insight to understand its pharmacological mechanism.