Hepatorenal-protective effects of a polyherbal tea in hyperuricemic mice: insights into uric acid metabolism, oxidative stress and apoptosis-related responses

Polyherbal teas are complex food matrices, but their effects on hyperuricemia-associated hepatorenal injury remain poorly defined. We conducted an organ-focused secondary analysis of a previously reported mouse experiment, focusing on the preventive administration of low-dose PHT. PHT attenuated hepatic and renal histopathology, increased superoxide dismutase activity and decreased malondialdehyde levels in both liver and kidney tissues, reduced hepatic xanthine oxidase transcript abundance, altered renal urate-transporter transcripts, and increased mt-Co1 and mt-Nd6 mitochondrial-encoded transcripts in both tissues. Untargeted UHPLC-HRMS yielded 73 CAS-indexed, putatively annotated chemical features co-detected in PHT extract and post-dose serum. Network pharmacology suggested convergence on a TP53–BAX–BCL2–CASP9–CASP3 module and prioritized candidate feature pairs for future combination testing. Western blotting showed lower Bax, Caspase-9 and Caspase-3 protein abundance after PHT exposure, whereas Bcl-2 was unchanged. Together, these findings suggest that PHT administration in a low-dose preventive setting may attenuate hyperuricemia-associated hepatorenal injury, accompanied by changes in urate metabolism-related gene expression, oxidative stress, mitochondrial-encoded transcripts, and apoptosis-related proteins.