The influence of herbal medicine ursolic acid on the uptake of rosuvastatin mediated by OATP1B1*1a and *5

Chinese herbal medicines such as hawthorn, salvia, etc., are frequently combined with statins so as to treat cardiovascular diseases more effectively. Chinese herbal medicines contain many kinds of active components, which may have drug–drug interactions with statins. This study aims to explore the effect and mechanism by which ursolic acid affects OATP1B1-mediated transport of rosuvastatin. This study will explore the effect of ursolic acid on OAPT1B1-mediated transport of rosuvastatin in the different cell systems. Given the genetic polymorphisms of OATP1B1, simultaneously, this study will further explore the effect of ursolic acid on OATP1B1 (521T>C)-mediated transport of rosuvastatin. When the concentration of ursolic acid was 1.8 and 18 µM, it showed that ursolic acid significantly inhibits the uptake of rosuvastatin in both OATP1B1*1a-HEK 293T cells and OATP1B1*5-HEK 293T cells. The reduction of OATP1B1*1a transport of rosuvastatin were 34.60 ± 2.99 and 66.08 ± 1.83 %, and for OATP1B1*5 were 34.27 ± 7.08 % and 66.95 ± 1.14 %. Inhibitory parameters of IC50 were 6.25 ± 0.42 and 6.07 ± 0.57 µM, respectively. This study suggests that ursolic acid can affect the uptake of rosuvastatin in hepatocytes by inhibiting the transport of OATP1B1, and gene mutation of OATP1B1 may cause different effects on its transport of rosuvastatin.