Objective: To study and explore the effect of Cholic Acid and Jasminoidin and a combination of the two components on and anti the injury of focal cerebral ischemia and reperfusion by measuring TNF-α, IL-1β and ICAM-1 in rat brain with middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO). Method: Adult male SD rats were randomly divided into sham-operation group, 2h ischemia and 12h reperfusion model group and Chinese materia medica treatment group (Cholic Acid group, Jasminoidin group, the group of combination of Cholic Acid and Jasminoidin, and Xueshuan Tong group). The model group of 2h ischemia 12h reperfusion of focal cerebral ischemia and reperfusion were built up by MCAO. The contents of TNF-α, IL-1β in rat brain tissue were measured by Radioimmunoassay (RIA) and that of ICAM-1 was measured by Enzyme-linked immunoadsorbent assay (ELISA). Results: Compared to the sham-operation group, the model group showed that the contents of TNF-α, IL-1β and ICAM-1 significantly increased after 2h ischemia and 12h reperfusion. Compared to the model group , Cholic Acid reduced the expression of TNF-αand IL-1β markedly ( P <0.
01 , P <0.05), but it had no effect on the expression of ICAM-1. Jasminoidin had no influence on the expression of all of them. TNF-αand ICAM-1 could be significantly decreased by Using Cholic Acid and Jasminoidin together ( P <0.01), but had no influence on the expression of IL-1β. Conclusion: Cholic Acid can reduce the expression of TNF-αand this effect is highly improved when combined with Jasminoidin. While, Cholic Acid's action of reducing the content of IL-1β can be decreased by using Cholic Acid and Jasminoidin together. They can significantly reduce ICAM-1, which neither of them can make it individually. Thus, it can be concluded that the mechanism of compatibility of Chinese medicines are not a simple pile-up of biological actions of the single drugs, and the compatibility of Chinese medicines might be different from when they are used individually.