[Preliminary screening of biomarkers for curcumin's antidepressant effect based on metabonomics method]

To screen potential biomarkers of curcumin related to treating depression rats by using metabolomics means, so as to explore the antidepressant action mechanism of curcumin. The healthy male SD rats were randomly divided into four groups. Chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS) stimulation was conducted for modeling for 2 weeks, and then curcumin (200 mg•kg⁻¹) or venlafaxine (40 mg•kg⁻¹) was given by gavage administration. The blank group and model group rats were given with the same volume of 1% CMCNa normal saline, once per day for two weeks. The rats serum for each group was collected and LC/MS-IT-TOF method was used to characterize the metabolic differences. Also multivariate statistical analysis was used to screen possible potential biomarkers and analyze the possible metabolic pathways. After administration of curcumin and venlafaxine respectively, the depression indexes of CUMS model rats were all improved significantly (P<0.05), but there were no significant differences between curcumin and venlafaxine groups. In PCA and PLS-DA analysis after curcumin or venlafaxine intervention on CUMS model group rats, the small molecule metabolites level reflects a normal trend, and particularly for the curcumin group. Through metabonomics technology, 11 biomarkers associated with curcumin antidepressant effect were screened, and at the same time seven metabolic pathways were involved. The results showed that curcumin had antidepressant effects, which was evident in both macro and micro levels, comparable with positive drug of venlafaxine. The antidepressant effect of curcumin may be associated with the glycerol phospholipid metabolism, linoleic acid metabolism, pentose and glucuronic acid ester and ether lipid metabolism, but still need further exploration in the future.