A serum metabolomics study based on LC-MS: Chemosensitization effects of Rauvolfia vomitoria Afzel. combined with 5- fluorouracil on colorectal cancer mice.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the malignant tumors with high incidence, and is mainly treated by chemotherapy at present. However, during CRC treatment, long-term use of traditional chemotherapeutic drugs will reduce the sensitivity of chemotherapy. Our previous studies have shown that Rauvolfia vomitoria total alkaloids (RVA) played an important role in 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) chemosensitization in CRC therapy, but its intervention mechanism has not been clarified completely in the metabolic level. Therefore, in this study, LC-MS based metabolomics was employed to explore the mechanism of 5-FU chemosensitization in CRC induced by the combination of RVA and conventional chemotherapeutic with 5-FU. The results showed that the final tumor weight of the high-dose combined group was significantly different from that of the 5-FU alone group. To evaluate the chemosensitization effects of RVA, serum samples collected from six groups (six mice in each group) with different administration methods were analyzed by HPLC-Q-Exactive Orbitrap/MS. After multivariate statistical analysis and metabolites identification, 25 different metabolites were identified between the 5-FU treatment group and combined high-dose treatment group, among which lipid and fatty acid metabolism pathways were mostly affected. These results suggest that RVA may sensitize traditional chemotherapeutic drug 5-FU and exert anti-tumor activity through influencing lipid metabolism and cell energy metabolism. Metabolomics provided a new insight into estimate of the therapeutic effect and dissection of the potential mechanisms of traditional Chinese medicine in treating colorectal cancer.