An Investigation of the Mechanism of Rapid Relief of Ulcerative Colitis Induced by Five-flavor Sophora Flavescens Enteric-coated Capsules Based on Network Pharmacology

Abstract

<jats:sec> <jats:title>Aim and Objective:</jats:title> <jats:p>Five-Flavor Sophora flavescens Enteric-Coated Capsules (FSEC) are the only proprietary Chinese medicine approved for the treatment of ulcerative colitis (UC) in China. Phase II and III clinical trials have shown that the curative effect of FSEC in relieving UC was not inferior to that of mesalazine granules and enteric-coated tablets, but its pharmacological mechanism is unclear. Therefore, the network pharmacology is used to reveal the more comprehensive effective components and targets of FSEC in the treatment of UC.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Methods:</jats:title> <jats:p>We screened the components of FSEC based on the TCMSP database, determined the action targets of these compounds through target fishing, and integrated the UC disease targets of several disease gene databases. The FSEC-UC composite targets were obtained by matching the two results, and then a PPI network was constructed to analyze the relationship between these targets, and the core targets were selected by topological correlation parameters. Finally, GO-BP and KEGG enrichment analyses were carried out using the clusterProfiler software package.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Results:</jats:title> <jats:p>One hundred and sixty active components of FSEC were identified and 77 targets were obtained. Of these, 30 core targets were the main targets of FESC in the treatment of UC. And quercetin, kaempferol, luteolin and mangiferin were regarded as the core active components of FSEC. The results screened by GO and KEGG enrichment analysis showed that FSEC played a comprehensive therapeutic role in immune recognition, anti-inflammation and antioxidation mainly through IL-17, TNF, Toll-like receptor, NF-kappa B, and Th17 cell differentiation.</jats:p> </jats:sec> <jats:sec> <jats:title>Conclusion:</jats:title> <jats:p>The molecular mechanism of UC remission induced by FSEC was predicted by network pharmacology. These findings provide an important theoretical basis for further study of the effective substances and mechanism of FSEC in the treatment of UC.</jats:p> </jats:sec>

Herbal Formula Modified Bu-Shen-Huo-Xue Decoction Attenuates Intervertebral Disc Degeneration via Regulating Inflammation and Oxidative Stress

“…A cytoHubba plugin [ 30 ] was used to identify the top 10 core genes by a method of maximal clique centrality (MCC). In addition, the cluster analysis was performed for the IDD targets PPI network by using the MCODE plugin in Cytoscape software [ 31 ]. The parameter conditions are as follows: a node score cutoff = 0.2, k core = 2, maximum depth = 100, and a degree cutoff = 2 [ 32 ].…”

Application of network pharmacology in the study of mechanism of Chinese medicine in the treatment of ulcerative colitis: A review

“…In China, as the only Chinese patent medicine approved for the treatment of UC, five-flavor Sophora flavescens enteric–coated capsules (FSEC) are very effective in clinical application. Gu et al (2020b )found that FSEC can act on the toll-like receptor, TNF, IL-17, NF-kappa B, and other signaling pathways, and finally exert comprehensive therapeutic effects such as anti-inflammatory, immune recognition, and antioxidant ( Gu et al, 2020b ). Through the aforementioned research, we found that traditional Chinese medicine has a significant effect on the treatment of ulcerative colitis and is widely used in clinical practice.…”

Potential Molecular Target Prediction and Docking Verification of Hua‐Feng‐Dan in Stroke Based on Network Pharmacology

“…en, the obtained "tsv" file was imported into Cytoscape 3.7.1 software. e MCODE plug-in was run to analyze the core network, and the network ranked first was selected for the next analysis [13].…”