Serum Metabolomics Analysis of Baicalein for Prevention and Treatment of Radiation-Induced Intestinal Damage in Mice Based on GC-MS
OBJECTIVE To investigate the changes in serum metabolites of mice with radiation-induced intestinal injury under the intervention of baicalein and the changing characteristics of endogenous biological small molecules during the process of baicalein's participation in the prevention and treatment of radiation-induced intestinal injury through the metabolomics method based on GC-MS technology,in order to explore the potential regulatory mechanism of baicalein.METHODS A mouse radioactive intestinal injury model was established and randomly divided into normal control group,model group,low-dose baicalein group and high-dose baica-lein group.Baicalein was administered by gavage.Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry(GC-MS)technology was used to analyze the serum samples of mice in each group,and differential metabolites were screened through partial least squares-discriminant analysis(PLS-DA).Potential metabolic pathways were analyzed with MetaboAnalyst.RESULTS The pathological sections of mouse intesti-nal tissue showed that the high-dose and low-dose baicalein groups had a certain protective effect on radiation-induced intestinal dam-age.Metabolomic analysis showed that there were significant differences in the metabolic profiles of the blank control group,model group,low-dose and high-dose baicalein administration groups.After intragastric administration of baicalein,the endogenous metabo-lites in mice with radiation intestinal injury tended to normalize.The study screened out a total of 11 potential metabolic markers and 5 related metabolic pathways,among which pathways related to glucose metabolism,glutathione pathway,and ammonia metabolism were particularly significant.CONCLUSION Baicalein has a certain preventive and therapeutic effect on radiation-induced intestinal in-jury;baicalein participates in glucose metabolism and glutathione metabolism,and improving the endogenous substance disorder caused by radiation is its potential mechanism of action.