Abstract: An ultra performance liquid chromatography-time of flight mass spectrometry (UPLC/TOF MS)-based method for plasma metabolic fingerprinting analysis was established. Acquired data were analyzed by principal component analysis and orthogonal projection to latent structure-discriminant analysis. The effect of Tang-shen-fang (TSF) on the treatment of diabetic nephropathy patients was evaluated. Significant changes were found after 3 and 6 months’ treatment of TSF compared with placebo controls. Nineteen metabolites in plasma were identified as potential biomarkers, including lipids, fatty acids and amino acids. The present metabonomic study is helpful to grasp the changes of global metabolic networks during the treatment of TSF and to testify its clinical efficacy and understand its action mechanism.

Key words: diabetic nephropathy, metabonomics, Tang-shen-fang decoction, ultra performance liquid chromatography-time of flight mass spectrometry (UPLC/TOF MS)