Based on the pathological theory of lipid metabolism and using network pharmacology, this study was designed to investigate the protective effect of water extract of Veratrilla baillonii (WVBF) on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) model using LO2 cells and to identify the potential mechanism underlying the effect. The components of V. baillonii were identified from the public database of traditional Chinese medicine systems pharmacology database (TCMSP). Cytoscape software was used to construct the related composite target network. Then, Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analysis were carried out for critical nodes. The BioGPS database was used to determine the distribution of the target in tissues and organs. Moreover, the inhibitory effect of V. baillonii was further investigated using an in vitro hepatocyte NAFLD model. Fourteen active components were then selected from the 27 known compounds of V. baillonii. The targets of gene enrichment analysis were mainly distributed in the lipid catabolism-related signaling pathway. Network analysis revealed that five target genes of TNF, MAPK8, mTOR, NF-ĸB, and SREBP-1c were key nodes and played important roles in this process. Organ localization analysis indicated that one of the core target site of V. baillonii was liver tissue. The results of the in vitro study revealed that WVBF can alleviate the inflammatory response and lipid accumulation in LO2 hepatocytes by inhibiting oxidative stress and the adipocytokine signaling pathway. Genes and proteins related to the lipid synthesis, such as SREBP-1C, acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACC), and fatty acid synthase (FASN), were significantly decreased, and PPARa expression is significantly increased with WVBF administration. In conclusion, V. baillonii may regulate local lipid metabolism and attenuate oxidative stress and inflammatory factors through the PPARa/ SREBP-1c signaling pathway. The present study also indicates that multiple components

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We propose two different designs of slotted photonic crystal nanofiber cavities (SPCNCs), dielectric-mode (DM) SPCNC and air-mode (AM) SPCNC, and numerically investigate their refractive index sensing performances when they are immersed in an aqueous environment. By using the three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain method, we demonstrate that the DM-SPCNC (AM-SPCNC) simultaneously possesses a high quality factor of 1.49 × 107 (7.96 × 106) and a high sensitivity of 598 nm/refractive index unit (RIU) (423 nm/RIU) at the resonant wavelength of 1525.94 nm (1585.06 nm), yielding a figure of merit as high as 5.8 × 106  RIU−1 (2.1 × 106  RIU−1). Moreover, the mode volume of the DM-SPCNC’s (AM-SPCNC’s) fundamental resonant mode is found to be as small as 0.12 (λ/n)3 (0.24 (λ/n)3), resulting in a very compact effective sensing area. With these distinct features, we believe our proposed cavities are potentially ideal platforms for applications in multiplexed biochemical sensing, multielement mixture detection, and optical trapping of single biomolecules or nanoparticles.