Ciencia

Chinese Medicine
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Serum proteomic, peptidomic and metabolomic profiles in myasthenia gravis patients during treatment with Qiangji Jianli Fang
Chinese Medicine 2012, 7:16 doi:10.1186/1749-8546-7-16

Chunmei Wang (feiyuhk@hotmail.com})Yonghai Lu (lvyonghai85@163.com}) Zhixi Chen (chenzhixi@126.com}) Xiaobin Liu (lxb_6984@163.com}) Huangquan Lin (lin2938@gmail.com}) Hui Zhao (zhaohui@gzhtcm.edu.cn}) Jinyan Chen (cjy5561@gzhtcm.edu.cn}) Yiuwa Kwan (yiuwakwan@cuhk.edu.hk}) Saiming Ngai (smngai@cuhk.edu.hk})

ISSN Article type Submission date Acceptance date Publication date Article URL

1749-8546 Research 10 February 2012 18June 2012 28 July 2012 http://www.cmjournal.org/content/7/1/16

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Serum proteomic, peptidomic and metabolomic profiles in myasthenia gravis patients during treatment with Qiangji Jianli Fang
Chunmei Wang1 Email: feiyuhk@hotmail.com Yonghai Lu1 Email: lvyonghai85@163.com Zhixi Chen2 Email: chenzhixi@126.com Xiaobin Liu3 Email: lxb_6984@163.com Huangquan Lin4 Email:lin2938@gmail.com Hui Zhao2 Email: zhaohui@gzhtcm.edu.cn Jinyan Chen2 Email: cjy5561@gzhtcm.edu.cn Yiuwa Kwan4 Email: yiuwakwan@cuhk.edu.hk Saiming Ngai1* * Corresponding author Email: smngai@cuhk.edu.hk
1

School of Life Sciences, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T, Hong Kong SAR, China
2

Department of Nuclear Medicine, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China
3School of Basic Medicine, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China
4

School of Biomedical Sciences, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China

Abstract
Background
Qiangji Jianli Fang (QJF) has been used for treatment of myasthenia gravis (MG) in China. However, our understanding of the effects of QJF against MG at the molecular level is limited. Thisstudy aims to investigate the effects of QJF treatment of MG patients on the protein, peptide and metabolite levels in serum.

Methods
High-throughput two-dimensional gel-based proteomic, peptidomic and metabolomic techniques were applied to investigate serum samples from 21 healthy individuals and 47 MG patients before and after QJF treatment via two-dimensional gel electrophoresis, matrixassistedlaser desorption/ionization time of flight mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography Fourier transform mass spectrometry, respectively.

Results
After QJF treatment, the expression levels of peptides m/z 1865.019, 2021.128 and 1211.668 of complement C3f increased (P = 0.004, P = 0.001 and P = 0.043, respectively), while that of peptide m/z 1739.931 of component C4b decreased (P = 0.043), inthe serum of MG patients. The levels of γ-aminobutyric acid (P = 0.000) and coenzyme Q4 (P = 0.000) resumed their normal states.

Conclusions
QJF could inhibit the activity of the complement system and restore the normal levels of metabolites.

Background
Myasthenia gravis (MG) is a chronic autoimmune neuromuscular disorder, with an incidence rate of 3–30/1,000,000 people per year [1]. MG...