ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Ethnopharmacology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2025.1587885
Therapeutic effects and mechanism analysis of Paeonia lactiflora extract (PLE) in menopausal rats with hot flashes
Provisionally accepted
- Faculty of Pharmacy, Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jinan, China
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Ethnopharmacological relevance: Menopausal syndrome (MPS) is a symptom of physical and psychosomatic abnormalities that women may face around the time of menopause. Hot flashes are the main symptom. Paeonia lactiflora extract (PLE) is the active ingredient extracted from Radix Paeonia alba. It can be used to treat MPS, such as hot flashes. However, its pharmacologic mechanism is unclear.Aim of the study: This study aims to comprehensively evaluate the effect of PLE on menopausal hot flashes, and to analyze the mechanism of action of PLE in the treatment of menopausal hot flashes from the perspective of neural pathways, to provide a research strategy and experimental basis for the study of similar new drugs and the pathogenesis of MPS.Materials and methods: First, we screened menopausal rats through the natural aging model.After 14 days of therapeutic drug gavage, a menopausal hot flashes model was induced in menopausal rats by gavage with thyroid tablet suspension (160 mg/kg) for 14 d. The changes in facial and tail temperature of rats in each group were observed; the behavioral characteristics of rats in each group were followed by an open field test, elevated plus maze and aggressive behavior test; the contents of estradiol, luteinizing hormone, follicle stimulating hormone, 5-hydroxytryptamine, cyclic guanosine monophosphate and cyclic adenosine monophosphate were detected by ELISA; the pathological changes of the uterus were detected by HE staining method. Combined with transcriptomics technology, high-throughput transcriptome sequencing was performed on the hypothalamus of control, model and PLE (160mg/kg) group, and differential gene analysis between control and model groups, and PLE (160mg/kg) group and model group was performed using DESeq2. qRT-PCR and Western Blot were used to further validate the candidate core genes.Results: PLE improved the mental status of model rats and reduced the abnormal tail temperature elevation in model rats. In addition, PLE had the effect of increasing the estradiol content and decreasing the luteinizing hormone content in the serum of rats, and the administration of 160 mg/kg of PLE also significantly increased the 5-
Keywords: Paeonia lactiflora extract, Menopausal Syndrome, Transcriptomics, Hypothalamus, Hot Flashes
Received: 10 Mar 2025; Accepted: 23 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Cui, Song, Gao, Wang, Sun, Fu, Han and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Jieqiong Wang, Faculty of Pharmacy, Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jinan, China
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