Quantitative proteomics reveals the protective effects of ESD against osteoarthritis via attenuating inflammation and modulating immune response

Epimedium, Salvia miltiorrhiza, and Dioscorea nipponica Makino (ESD) have been combined to treat osteoarthritis (OA) for a long time. In this study we used quantitative proteomics to find the protective effects of ESD against OA and possible mechanism. After papain-induced rats OA model established ESD was intragastrically administrated to rats for four weeks. Label-free quantitative proteomics was used to screen the comprehensive protein profiling changes in both OA and ESD groups. After stringent filtering, 62 proteins were found to be significantly up-regulated and 208 proteins were down-regulated in OA model compared with sham-operated control. Functional analysis revealed that these OA up-regulated proteins were enriched in the activation of humoral immunity response, complement activation, leukocyte mediated immunity, acute inflammatory, endocytosis regulation, and proteolysis regulation. ESD partially recovered the protein profiling changes in OA model. The effects of ESD were also assessed by measurement of behavioral activity and pathologic changes in the joints. ESD showed protective effects in suppressing inflammation, releasing joint pain, and attenuating cartilage degradation. Our study presented that ESD as a potential candidate to alleviate OA damage by reducing inflammation and modulating of immune system.