Objective: To observe the effect of Acanthopanax senticosus polysaccharides(ASPS) on endogenous metabolites in normal rats using metabolomics method

find potential biomarkers

analyze the metabolic pathways

and explore its pharmacological effects and mechanisms of action. Method: Twenty SD rats were randomly divided into two groups

namely 10 in the blank group with normal saline treatment (10 mL·kg-1) and 10 in ASPS group with ASPS treatment (100 mg·kg-1) for 20 days respectively. Urine samples were collected on day 21 for UPLC-Q-TOF/MS analysis. Micromass Markerlynx software was adopted for chromatographic peak identifying and peaks matching

and the principal component analysis (PCA) and orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis (O-PLS-DA) were used for dimension reduction process for the complex multi-dimensional data. Based on the metabolic fingerprinting data analysis of urine samples in blank group and ASPS group

biomarkers were matched according to mass to charge ratio

and their metabolic pathway was identified. Result: Twenty potential biomarkers such as 6-dimethylaminopurine and L-acetylcarnitine were identified

and their pharmacological activity was found to be related to neuroprotection and resisting cell apoptosis. Conclusion: ASPS has a certain pharmacological effects on Alzheimer's disease

cardiovascular disease and other diseases

and its mechanism may be related to cell apoptosis and excitotoxic hypothesis.