A Biomedical Investigation of the Hepatoprotective Effect of Radix salviae miltiorrhizae and Network Pharmacology-Based Prediction of the Active Compounds and Molecular Targets

Abstract

Radix salviae miltiorrhizae (Danshen in Chinese), a classic traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) herb, has been used for centuries to treat liver diseases. In this study, the preventive and curative potential of Danshen aqueous extract on acute/chronic alcoholic liver disease (ALD) and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) was studied. The in vivo results indicated that Danshen could alleviate hepatic inflammation, fatty degeneration, and haptic fibrogenesis in ALD and NAFLD models. In the aspect of mechanism of action, the significant reduction in MDA levels in both ALD and NAFLD models implies the decreased levels of oxidative stress by Danshen. However, Danshen treatment could not activate the internal enzymatic antioxidant system in ALD and NAFLD models. To further explore the hepatoprotective mechanism of Danshen, an in silico-based network pharmacology approach was employed in the present study. The pharmacological network analysis result revealed that six potential active ingredients such as tanshinone iia, salvianolic acid b, and Danshensu may contribute to the hepatoprotective effects of Danshen on ALD and NAFLD. The action mechanism may relate with regulating the intracellular molecular targets such as PPARα, CYP1A2, and MMP2 for regulation of lipid metabolism, antioxidant and anti-fibrogenesis by these potential active ingredients. Our studies suggest that the combination of network pharmacology strategy with in vivo experimental study may provide a forceful tool for exploring the mechanism of action of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) herb and developing novel bioactive ingredients.

Therapeutic potential of phages in autoimmune liver diseases

“…Antioxidative therapy aiming to prevent the progression of liver injury represents a reasonable means of treatment. Although experimental studies in vitro and in animals are encouraging, only few clinical trials have demonstrated the beneficial effects of anti-oxidants regarding the the prevention of progression of ALD [43,44].…”

Targeting VEGF/VEGFRs Pathway in the Antiangiogenic Treatment of Human Cancers by Traditional Chinese Medicine

“…After comprehensive screening, all the filtered data were imported into Cytoscape, a professional software package in bioscience research for the analysis of network pharmacology (available online at http://www.cytoscape.org/ ). 116 , 117 The detailed relationships regarding the well-accepted ideology of “multitarget, multidrug” among each factor can be straightforwardly observed in Figure 3 . More specifically, the nodes represent the TCMs-related compounds, refined extracts and biological factors (protein or mRNA).…”

Selected hepatoprotective herbal medicines: Evidence from ethnomedicinal applications, animal models, and possible mechanism of actions

“…It was shown to have hepatoprotective effects on ethanol-induced oxidative damage in primary culture of rat hepatocytes through its antioxidant activity especially the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione reductase (Chirdchupunseree & Pramyothin, 2010). Previously, Naaz, Javed, and Abdin (2007) (Han et al, 2008), and chronic hepatitis (Hong et al, 2017). According to Chinese Pharmacopoeia, S. miltiorrhiza is considered to possess slightly cold and bitter properties, enters the heart and liver channels and increases blood flow and scavenges free radicals that decreases cellular damage in patients with ischemic diseases (Sun et al, 2005).…”