Integrated transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics to identify biomarkers of astragaloside IV against cerebral ischemic injury in rats.

The herb Astragali Radix is a food-medicine herb. A major component of Astragali Radix, astragaloside IV (AS-IV), has neuroprotective effects in IS, but its mechanisms are not well understood. Our research used a transient middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) rat model for longitudinal multi-omics analyses of the side of the brain affected by ischemia. Based on transcriptomic and proteomic analysis, we found that 396 differential expression targets were up-regulated and 114 differential expression targets were down-regulated. A total of 117 differential metabolites were identified based on metabonomics. Finally, we found 8 hub genes corresponding to the compound-reaction-enzyme-gene network using the Metscape plug-in for Cytoscape 3.7.1. We found that the related key metabolites were 3,4-dihydroxy-L-phenylalanine, 2-aminomuconate semialdehyde, (