A new method for evaluating drug efficacy at the gene expression level

Background: Many natural medicines exert therapeutic effects through multitarget regulation, and using methods that simply evaluate the effects of a chemical drug on several targets to study natural products may not comprehensively reflect their efficacy. Objectives: This research attempts to explore and establish a new method to evaluate drug efficacy at the gene expression level using natural hepatoprotective drugs. Methods: Forty SPF male SD rats were randomly divided into a control group, a liver injury model group, a positive drug group (reduced glutathione), a curcumin treatment group and a puerarin treatment group. Carbon tetrachloride was used to damage liver cells and establish a liver injury model. Gene microarray technology was used to detect gene expression in liver cells. Results: Drug treatments significantly reduced the number of differentially expressed genes in the liver compared with model group and efficacy evaluation of drugs were curcumin > positive control drug > puerarin. The liver function indices and pathological analysis also supported the above results. Conclusion: Our findings demonstrated that the efficacy of different drugs can be evaluated at the level of gene expression.