Fingerprint, multi-component content determination, and mechanism in treating Intracerebral Hemorrhage of Tao-He-Cheng-Qi granule

Tao-He-Cheng-Qi granule (THCQ) was derived from Tao-He-Cheng-Qi Decoction, which has been proved to be one of the effective traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) applied in the treatment of Intracerebral Hemorrhage (ICH). The objective of this investigation was to study the quality control of THCQ and explore its potential mechanism in treating ICH. According to the results, 20 batches of THCQ had similar chromatographic fingerprints. The similarities of chromatograms of the 20 batches were 0.937–0.998 and 15 major chromatographic peaks were identified as the common peaks for the quality control of THCQ. Subsequently, four analytical methods were successfully established to determine 7 index components of THCQ, respectively, which then were applied in 20 batches of THCQ to determine the content of these index components. Besides, animal experiments were conducted to explore the mechanism of THCQ in the treatment of ICH. After a three-day treatment, behavioral changes and brain histopathological evaluations of SD rats showed that THCQ dose-dependently improved the symptoms of rats with ICH. The results of immunohistochemical evaluations showed that THCQ reduced the expressions of TNF-α and IL-1β. The results of protein expressions detected by ELISA revealed that THCQ dose-dependently reduced Notch1 level and increased the expression of VEGFR. Collectively, the mechanisms of THCQ for treating ICH might be closely relevant to the downregulation of Notch and NF-κB and the upregulation of VEGFR. These findings provided insight for studies in investigating the quality control and further clinical application of THCQ.