New insights into effects of Kaixin Powder on depression via lipid metabolism related adiponectin signaling pathway

OBJECTIVE: To clarify the anti-depressive potential mechanisms of Kaixin Powder (KP), a drug that helps to prevent and treat depression and other mentaldiseases, from genome-wide transcriptome profiling. METHODS: Transcriptome and KEGG pathway analysis were conducted on the hippocampus of depressed rats, then the differentially expressed genes were validated and serum concentration of lipid parameters were identified by enzymatic assays. Furthermore, high-fat diets induced depression-like behaviors in Syrian golden hamsters were conducted to verify the predicted molecular mechanisms acquired from the transcriptome analysis. RESULTS: Transcriptome results revealed that the 24 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in chronic mild stress (CMS) rats could be reversed after two weeks of KP treatment. The mechanisms of KP in treating depression firstly involved the regulation of several pathology modules, including lipid metabolism, synapse function and inflammation. KP could regulate imbalances of lipid homeostasis in high-fat diet induced depressive symptoms. Furthermore, it was validated that cholesterol metabolism dysfunction can be ameliorated by KP, which was correlated with upregulation of the AdipoR1-BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) co-regulatory pathway. CONCLUSION: Taken together, our results demonstrated that KP not only alleviates depression via traditional mental illness targets, but it may also simulates the cholesterol metabolism and adiponectin signaling with multi-target characteristics.