Background and Purpose: The Bazhen decoction is one of the most
extensively used Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) prescriptions for
anti-aging. However, due to the complicity of the components, the
pharmacological mechanism of Bazhen decoction is still limited.
Experimental approach: We applied RNA sequencing and transcriptome
analysis to get the full view of the signaling pathways regulated by
Bazhen decoction in the wild type cell background. By using the
progeroid cells derived from Werner syndrome mice, we applied Western
blot, Immunofluorescence, flow cytometry and telomere FISH to verify the
transcriptome data. Key Results: The transcriptome profile revealed that
Bazhen decoction might systematically regulate multiple anti-aging
pathways, including stem cell regulation, protein homeostasis,
cardiovascular function, neuronal function, anti-inflammation, anti-DNA
damage induced stress, DNA helicase activity and telomere lengthening.
We found that multiple DNA helicases and telomere regulating proteins
were up-regulated by Bazhen decoction, which promoted the resolving of
G-quadruplex (G4) structure, and facilitated DNA replication and
telomere elongation. These improvements also endowed the cellular
resistance to DNA damages induced by replication stress. Together these
data suggest that Bazhen decoction facilitate G4 resolving and telomere
maintenance, which might contribute to the longevity sustaining
properties revealed by transcriptome profile. Conclusions &
Implications: Our data revealed a new strategy for recovering the
pharmacological signature pathways for TCM, which could help the
clinical precision medicine of TCM. By applying transcriptome in
TCM-treated normal cell, we tried out a systematic analysis for
dissecting the molecular mechanism of complicated TCM prescription in
the normal genetic background.