Xia Yu Xue Decoction (XYXD) is a traditional Chinese medicine which has been widely used in clinic practice for treating liver disease. However, its mechanism of action remains unknown. In this study, a urinary metabonomic method, based on gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC/MS), was developed to investigate the effect of XYXD on liver fibrosis. Pattern recognition analysis, including principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least square discriminant analysis (PLS-DA), showed that metabolic perturbations induced by CCl(4) were restored after treatment with XYXD. Ten potential biomarkers associated with modulation of energy metabolism, microflora metabolism, amino acid and fatty acid metabolism were identified, suggesting that the mechanism of action of XYXD may involve these processes. Our findings indicate that metabonomic methods based on GC/MS may provide a useful means of exploring biomarkers involved in liver fibrosis and for elucidating the mechanisms of action of therapies used in traditional Chinese medicine.
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