Antioxidant synergism among component herbs of traditional Chinese medicine formula, ShengMai San studied in vitro and in vivo

ShengMai San (SMS) comprising three herbal components (Panax Ginseng, Ophiogon japonicus and Schisandra chinensis) is one of the most popular traditional Chinese medicine prescriptions, having been used for more than 3000 years in China to treat symptoms related to Qi depletion and cardiac disorders. In the present study, antioxidant synergism among the component herbs of SMS was precisely examined in vitro using extracts prepared from respective component herbs and their possible combinations under high hydrostatic pressure (600 Mpa). Expression of antioxidant enzymes in brain was also studied in rats administered those extracts by western blotting method. It was revealed that complete SMS formula had the highest potential both in scavenging 1,1-diphenyl-2-picylhydrazyl (DPPH) and hydroxyl radicals in vitro, and also in the expression of heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and cytosolic glutathione peroxidase (GPx) proteins in brain of rats administered the extract for five days. Certain synergistic interactions among the component herbs were observed in the antioxidant activity in vitro and also in the antioxidant enzyme expression in vivo. Correlation analysis between in vivo and in vitro data revealed that expression of HO-1 and SOD were highly related to in vitro DPPH and superoxide radical scavenging activities with significant correlation coefficients of 0.899 and 0.758, respectively. Expression of GPx showed weak correlation with all the in vitro antioxidant indicators. It was concluded that the combination of three herbs are essential to confer the maximal antioxidant potential to the SMS formula, and that SMS exerts potential antioxidant activity in vivo through its inherent radical scavenging activity and also the modulation of expression level of antioxidant enzymes.