The mechanism of patchouli alcohol in treating IBS-D based on BMP-Smad pathway.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is a chronic gastrointestinal condition, and diarrhea predominant (IBS-D) is the most common subtype.The enteric nervous system (ENS) regulates major gastrointestinal motility and function, and the intestinal neuronal BMP-SMAD signaling pathway is closely related to intestinal motility. Patchouli alcohol (PA) has been reported to modulate IBS-D, but whether its mechanism of action ameliorates IBS-D through the BMP-SMAD signaling pathway is unclear.

The Effects of Patchouli Alcohol on Diarrhea-Predominant Irritable Bowel Syndrome are Correlated with Phenotypic Plasticity in Myenteric Neurons and the Targeted Regulation of Myosin Va.

Patchouli alcohol (PA) has been widely used for the treatment of diarrhea-predominant irritable bowel syndrome (IBS-D) in traditional Chinese medicine, and the related mechanism remains to be fully understood. Our previous study has indicated that PA significantly reduced visceral sensitivity and defecation area in IBS-D rats. In this study, we prepared an IBS-D rat model and observed the dynamic intestinal motility and colonic longitudinal muscle and myenteric plexus (LMMP) neurons, as well as their subtypes at D14, D21, and D28.