The occurrence and development of diabetic nephropathy (DN) are closely related to gut microbiota. Paecilomyces cicadae is a medicinal and edible fungus. Radix astragali is a therapeutic material for unifying Chinese Qi. They can delay the occurrence and development of kidney disease. In recent years, solid-state fermentation of edible fungi and traditional Chinese medicine has become a hot issue.
Hypothesis/Gap Statement. We assumed that solid-state fermentation products of R. astragali and Paecilomyces cicadidae (RPF) could ameliorate diabetic nephropathy and modulate gut microbiota composition.
We aimed to study the function and mechanism of the RPF for ameliorating DN in mice.
We investigated the effect of the potential roles of RPF in DN mice and interaction between DN and gut microbiota using animal experiments and gut microbiota measurements.
We found that RPF dramatically reduced urine protein, serum creatinine and blood urea nitrogen in DN mice. Furthermore, RPF ameliorated the physiological condition of DN mice by regulating the abundance of intestinal microbiota such as Ruminococcaceae_UCG-014,
Allobaculum
, Unclassified_f__Lachnospiraceae Alloprevotella and
Bacteroides
.
RPF can ameliorate diabetic nephropathy and modulate gut microbiota composition.
In this study, molecular dynamics simulation was applied to the construction of small intestinal epithelial cell membrane and prediction of drug absorption. First, we constructed a system of a small intestinal epithelial cell membrane that was close to the real proportion and investigated the effects of temperature, water layer thickness, and ionic strength on membrane properties to optimize environmental parameters. Next, three drugs with different absorptivity, including Ephedrine (EPH), Quercetin (QUE), and Baicalin (BAI), were selected as model drugs to study the ability of drugs through the membrane by the free diffusion and umbrella sampling simulation, and the drug permeation ability was characterized by the free diffusion coefficient D and free energy barrier (△G) in the processes. The results showed that the free diffusion coefficient D’ and △G’ orders of the three drugs were consistent with the classical experimental absorption order, indicating that these two parameters could be used to jointly characterize the membrane permeability of the drugs.
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