A new method for evaluating drug efficacy at the gene expression level.

BACKGROUND

Many natural medicines exert therapeutic effects through multitarget regulation, and using methods that simply evaluate the effects of a chemical drug on several targets to study natural products may not comprehensively reflect their efficacy.

OBJECTIVES

This research attempts to explore and establish a new method to evaluate drug efficacy at the gene expression level using natural hepatoprotective drugs.

METHODS

Forty SPF male SD rats were randomly divided into a control group, a liver injury model group, a positive drug group (reduced glutathione), a curcumin treatment group and a puerarin treatment group. Carbon tetrachloride was used to damage liver cells and establish a liver injury model. Gene microarray technology was used to detect gene expression in liver cells.

RESULTS

Drug treatments significantly reduced the number of differentially expressed genes in the liver compared with model group and efficacy evaluation of drugs were curcumin > positive control drug > puerarin. The liver function indices and pathological analysis also supported the above results.

CONCLUSION

Our findings demonstrated that the efficacy of different drugs can be evaluated at the level of gene expression.