Screening the active contituents from duhaldea nervosa via integrated UHPLC-Q-exactive Orbitrap-MS and network...

Duhaldea nervosa (Wallich ex Candolle) A. Anderberg (Asteraceae) (D. nervosa), has been used as a folk medicine for the treatment of diseases including bone fractures and bone wounds. However, the metabolic profiling of D. nervosa and mechanism of action for treating fracture are unknown.In this study, an integrated analysis method based on UHPLC-Q-Exactive Orbitrap MS and network pharmacology was established to research the metabolic characteristic of D. nervosa. Serum in the blank group and drug group were collected after intragastric administration of D. nervosa. The serum samples were analysed using UHPLC-MS. In addition, network pharmacology and cell proliferation assays were used to analysis the mechanism of fracture healing of D. nervosa.A total of 62 constituents, including 24 prototype compounds and 38 metabolites were identified in rat serum. The result of network pharmacology revealed that the fracture healing effect of 23 metabolites was probably acting through 65 genes targets. Serum samples promoted osteoblast proliferation in a concentration-dependent manner in mouse osteoblast cell line (MC3T3-E1 cells).To our best knowledge, it is the first time to report the constituents in vivo of D. nervosa. This work provided a general method for understanding the bioactive compounds of D. nervosa.