Abstract
Chinese herbs have long been used to treat allergic disease, but recently the development was greatly impeded by the lack of good methods to explore the mechanism of action. Here, we showed the effects of Chinese herb Radix Paeoniae alba were identified and characterized by a mast cell activation assay that involves electronic impedance readouts for dynamic monitoring of cellular responses to produce time-dependent cell responding profiles (TCRPs), and the anti-allergic activities were further confirmed with various conventional molecular and cell biology tools. We found Radix P. alba can dose-dependently inhibit TCPRs, and have anti-allergic function in vitro and in vivo. Radix P. alba suppressed mast cell degranulation not only inhibiting the translocation of granules to the plasma membrane, but also blocking membrane fusion and exocytosis; and that there may be other anti-allergic components in addition to paeoniflorin. Our results suggest that Radix P. alba regulated mast cell activation with multiple targets, and this approach is also suitable for discovering other mast cell degranulation-targeting Chinese herbs and their potential multi-target mechanisms.