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An Efficient Approach To Monitor Gastrointestinal Microflora Changes

Date:
May 22, 2009
Source:
World Journal of Gastroenterology
Summary:
Pi-deficiency, a clinical syndrome in traditional Chinese medicine, is one of the most common digestive system diseases and generally considered linked to the abnormalities of gastrointestinal microflora. A research group in China examined the changes of intestinal cimircoflora of Pi-deficiency disorder with molecular method. They established a rapid and efficiency analysis of gastrointestinal microflora of Pi-deficient rats and therefore to build a better understanding of Pi-deficiency and the relevant Chinese materia medicas.
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FULL STORY

Pi-deficiency in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is one of the most common digestive diseases and usually the equilibrium of gastrointestinal microflora are broken, which plays many important roles in the growth, development and performance of the host. Therefore, more clinical interests are arising in monitoring changes of intestinal microflora in intestinal disease and the consequent treatment, especially in TCM therapies.

It has been found that some Chinese materia medica have curative effects on regulating the equilibrium of intestinal microflora and therefore promote the recovery of 'Pi'. However, ways of monitoring the intestinal flora are quite limited, not only because of the complexity of its constitution, but also the difficulty of culturing for most gastrointestinal bacteria in vitro.

A research team led by Prof. Li from School of Pharmacy of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China, used enterobacterial repetitive intergenic consensus-PCR (ERIC-PCR), which is a PCR-based molecular method, and utilizes oligonuleotides targeting short repetitive sequences ERIC which are dispersed throughout various bacterial genomes, to study changes of intestinal microflora under Pi-deficiency state and evaluate therapeutic effects of Chinese materia medica.

ERIC-PCR have implications in monitoring the effects of various known factors on the complex intestinal microflora community. The article introduced it to examine the changes of intestinal mircoflora of Pi-deficiency disorder with two animal models. They further evaluate the efficacy of four Chinese materia medicas as well as a probiotic and another disease therapy recipe in Pi-deficient rats, and determine if it could be utilized as an initial screening of changes of the composition of bacterial communities.

A molecular marker was identified for Pi-deficiency in rats. The pharmacodynamic evaluating system, including identified molecular markers (net integral area and abundance of DNA band), Shannon's index for diversity of intestinal microflora, and Sorenson's pairwise similarity coefficient, was established. With application of this evaluating system, four major clinical recipes used for Pi-deficiency therapy in TCM were demonstrated to produce more pronounced recovery activities on the Pi-deficient rats, especially the middle dose (equivalence to the clinical dose), while the higher doses of these recipes did not show a better therapeutic effect even showed some perturbation deterioration of intestinal microflora.

Both the fingerprint analysis and the identified marker were demonstrated to distinguish the Pi-deficiency. The identified molecular marker may have application in the screening of active compounds in relative Chinese materia medicas and pharmacodynamic study in Pi-deficiency.


Story Source:

Materials provided by World Journal of Gastroenterology. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Journal Reference:

  1. Peng et al. Intestinal microflora molecular markers of spleen-deficient rats and evaluation of traditional Chinese drugs. World Journal of Gastroenterology, 2009; 15 (18): 2220 DOI: 10.3748/wjg.15.2220

Cite This Page:

World Journal of Gastroenterology. "An Efficient Approach To Monitor Gastrointestinal Microflora Changes." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 22 May 2009. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090522101837.htm>.
World Journal of Gastroenterology. (2009, May 22). An Efficient Approach To Monitor Gastrointestinal Microflora Changes. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 28, 2024 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090522101837.htm
World Journal of Gastroenterology. "An Efficient Approach To Monitor Gastrointestinal Microflora Changes." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090522101837.htm (accessed March 28, 2024).

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