Danggui-Yimucao Herb Pair Can Protect Mice From the Immune Imbalance Caused by Medical Abortion and Stabilize the Level of Serum Metabolites

Effects of dietary Chinese herbal mixtures on productive performance, egg quality, immune status, caecal and offspring meconial microbiota of Wenchang breeder hens

This study aimed to evaluate the effects of Chinese herbal mixtures (CHMs) on productive performance, egg quality, immune status, anti-apoptosis ability, caecal microbiota, and offspring meconial microbiota in hens. A total of 168 thirty-week-old Wenchang breeder hens were randomly divided into two groups, with each group comprising six replicate pens of fourteen hens. The groups were fed a basal diet (CON group) and a basal diet with 1,000 mg/kg CHMs (CHMs group) for 10 weeks. Our results showed that dietary supplementation with CHMs increased the laying rate, average egg weight, hatch of fertile, and offspring chicks' weight while concurrently reducing the feed conversion ratio (FCR) and embryo mortality (p < 0.05). The addition of CHMs resulted in significant improvements in various egg quality parameters, including eggshell strength, albumen height, haugh unit, and the content of docosatetraenoic acid (C20:4n-6) in egg yolk (p < 0.05). The supplementation of CHMs had a greater concentration of IgA and IgG while decreasing the content of IL-6 in serum compared with the CON group (p < 0.05). Addition of CHMs to the diet increased the expression of Bcl-2 and IL-4 in liver and ovary, decreased the expression of IL-1β, Bax, and Caspase-8 in jejunum and ovary, and decreased the expression of NF-κB in liver, jejunum, and ovary (p < 0.05). Moreover, dietary CHMs reduced the abundance of Desulfovibrio in caecal microbiota as well as decreased the abundance of Staphylococcaceae_Staphylococcus and Pseudomonadaceae_Pseudomonas in the offspring meconial microbiota (p < 0.05). In conclusion, the CHMs could improve productive parameters by enhancing immune status, anti-apoptosis capacity, and modulating the caecal microbiota of Wenchang breeder hens, as well as maintaining the intestinal health of the offspring chicks.

The serum lipidomics reveal the action mechanism of Danggui-Yimucao herbal pair in abortion mice

Medical abortion is a common medical procedure that women choose to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, but it often brings post-abortion complications. Danggui (Angelica sinensis Radix)-Yimucao (Leonuri Herba), as a herbal pair (DY) in clinical prescriptions of traditional Chinese medicine, is often used in the treatment of gynecological diseases and has the traditional functions of tonifying the blood, promoting blood circulation, removing blood stasis and regulating menstruation. In this study, serum lipidomics were adopted to dissect the mechanism of DY in promoting recovery after medical abortion. A total of 152 differential metabolites were screened by lipidomics. All metabolites were imported into MetaboAnalyst for analysis, and finally key metabolic pathways such as glycerophospholipid metabolism, linoleic acid metabolism and pentose and glucuronate interconversions were enriched. Our results indicated that metabolic disorders in abortion mice were alleviated by DY through glycerophospholipid metabolism, while prostaglandin and leukotriene metabolites might be the key targets of DY to promote post-abortion recovery.