State Key Laboratory of Component-Based Chinese Medicine, Tianjin Key Laboratory of TCM Chemistry and Analysis, Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tianjin, 301617, China.
Sci Rep. 2021 Oct 27;11(1):21191. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-00182-0.
The American cockroach, Periplaneta americana (L.), is able to highly survive in various complicated environments around the globe, and often considered as a pest. In contrast, billions of P. americana have been massively reared in China and extensively used as a medicinal insect, due to its function for preventing and treating ulceration and heart failure. Considering the possibility that microbiota-derived metabolites could be an effective source to identify promising candidate drugs, we attempted to establish a rapid method for simultaneous determination of gut microbiota metabolites from medicinal insects. In this study, network pharmacology approach and ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) technique were employed to reveal the potential pharmacological activity and dynamics variation of nitrogen-containing metabolites (NCMs) originated from the gut microbiota of breeding P. americana at different growth stages. A metabolites-targets-diseases network showed that NCMs are likely to treat diseases such as ulceration and cancer. The analysis of NCMs' content with the growth pattern of P. americana indicated that the content of NCMs declined with P. americana aging. Both principal component analysis and orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis suggested that 8-hydroxy-2-quinolinecarboxylic acid and 8-hydroxy-3,4-dihydro-2(1H)-quinolinone are the potential differential metabolic markers for discriminating between nymphs and adults of P. americana. Moreover, the developed UPLC method showed an excellent linearity (R > 0.999), repeatability (RSD < 2.6%), intra- and inter-day precisions (RSD < 2.2%), and recovery (95.5%-99.0%). Collectively, the study provides a valuable strategy for analyzing gut microbiota metabolites from insects and demonstrates the prospects for discovering novel drug candidates from the feces of P. americana.
美洲大蠊，Periplaneta americana（L.），能够在全球各种复杂环境中高度生存，常被认为是害虫。相比之下，数十亿只美洲大蠊在中国被大规模养殖，并广泛用作药用昆虫，因为它具有防治溃疡和心力衰竭的功能。考虑到微生物衍生代谢物可能是识别有前途候选药物的有效来源，我们试图建立一种从药用昆虫肠道微生物群中同时测定肠道微生物群代谢物的快速方法。在这项研究中，采用网络药理学方法和超高效液相色谱（UPLC）技术，揭示了不同生长阶段养殖美洲大蠊肠道微生物群衍生的含氮代谢物（NCMs）的潜在药理活性和动态变化。一个代谢物-靶标-疾病网络表明，NCMs 可能治疗溃疡和癌症等疾病。随着美洲大蠊的生长，NCMs 含量的分析表明，NCMs 的含量随着美洲大蠊的衰老而下降。主成分分析和正交偏最小二乘判别分析均表明，8-羟基-2-喹啉羧酸和 8-羟基-3,4-二氢-2(1H)-喹啉酮是区分美洲大蠊若虫和成虫的潜在差异代谢标志物。此外，所建立的 UPLC 方法具有极好的线性（R>0.999）、重复性（RSD<2.6%）、日内和日间精密度（RSD<2.2%）和回收率（95.5%-99.0%）。总之，该研究为分析昆虫肠道微生物群代谢物提供了一种有价值的策略，并展示了从美洲大蠊粪便中发现新型候选药物的前景。
