Effect of traditional Chinese medicine on disturbances of untargeted metabolomics in ulcerative colitis.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a chronic inflammatory disease of the colon and rectum. UC has become a major health concern because of its high recurrence and poor prognosis. Key microbiota-derived untargeted metabolites, such as short-chain fatty acids, medium-long-chain fatty acids, bile acids, tryptophan and derived metabolites, sphingolipids, and amino acids, which are produced by the gut microbiota, have also been involved in UC pathogenesis. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), has been confirmed to reduce recurrence rates, with few adverse effects for UC treatment, and demonstrated to effectively regulate the colonic untargeted metabolites.

AIM OF THE REVIEW: This review discussed and analyzed the disturbances of the untargeted metabolites in UC and TCMs including compounds, formulas, extracts and single herb ameliorate UC injury by regulating untargeted metabolites. It provided an advanced understanding of the disrupted microbiota-metabolomics interaction in UC and explores the mechanism of TCMs for UC therapy by altering untargeted metabolites.

MATERIALS AND

METHODS

With "ulcerative colitis", "intestine injury ", "microbiota", "untargeted metabolites", "traditional Chinese medicine", "short-chain fatty acids", "medium- and long-chain fatty acids", "bile acids", "tryptophan", "sphingolipids", "amino acids", "extracts ", "compound", "herb" as the main keywords, PubMed, Wangfang Database, Web of Science, and other online search engines were used for literature retrieval.

RESULTS

The findings of recent studies showed that UC is closed related to untargeted metabolites disorders, including short-chain fatty acids, medium- and long-chain fatty acids, bile acids, tryptophan and derived metabolites, sphingolipids, and amino acids, which are very useful for UC diagnosis, activity index, and response to therapeutic interventions. The therapeutic mechanism of TCMs for UC is based on regulating these untargeted metabolites disorders.

CONCLUSION

UC injury is associated with the disrupted microbiota-metabolomics, and the therapeutic effects of TCMs for UC depend on regulating untargeted metabolomics. This review provides an advanced understanding of untargeted metabolomics disorders in UC pathogenies and explores the use of TCM compounds and extracts of single TCM for UC therapy by altering untargeted metabolomics. In the future, further clinical trial studies should be needed to explore role of TCMs treatment for UC by reversing UC metabolomics disorders.