The Antihypertensive Effects of Eucommia Ulmoides Leaf Water/ethanol Extracts Are Chlorogenic Acid Dependent

The antihypertensive effects of Eucommia ulmoides were determined between normal rats and spontaneously hypertensive rats daily gavaged with leaf extracts, bark extract, chlorogenic acid (CGA), and captopril. Significant composition difference between leaf and bark extracts were noted since CGA was only detected in leaf extract. The overall antihypertensive effects ranked as captopril > CGA > leaf extracts > bark extract, indicating the antihypertensive effect of E. ulmoides extract was CGA-dependent. The hypertension related targets of CGA were screened out and ten KEGG pathways of these targets were significantly enriched, indicating CGA took function in antihypertension via multiple biological processes. Molecular docking revealed CGA bound more tightly to hypertension related targets than captopril, indicating CGA positively participated in antihypertension. However, drug-likeness evaluation displayed the bioavailability of CGA was 5 times lower than captopril, which was consistent with dosage difference in animal experimental. Hence, the antihypertensive effect of CGA was bioavailability limited.