Network pharmacology study to reveal underlying mechanisms, targets, and bioactives of Aralia cordata against obesity

Abstract

Aralia cordata (AC) has been used as anti-obesity herbal plants by Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, but its active chemical constituents, mechanism(s), and targets have not been documented completely. We aimed to investigate signi cant phytochemicals, pathways, and targets of AC against obesity via network pharmacology. The phytochemicals from AC were identi ed by Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrum (GC-MS) and were screened subsequently by Lipinski's rule. The compound-target relationships were retrieved by analyzing SwissTargetPrediction (STP), SEA search server. Then, obesity-related targets were identi ed by public bioinformatics and nal overlapping targets were selected by Ven diagram. Next, we constructed and visualized protein-to-protein interaction (PPI) networks, bubble chart, and pathways-targets-compounds (PTC) networks by RPackage. Furthermore, we utilized the Autodock Tools to perform molecular docking test (MDT) on the bioactives and key targets to validate the network pharmacological results. We con rmed a total of 43 compounds from AC via GC-MS and 40 nal targets regarding obesity. The PPI networks analysis revealed IL6 as a key target, and a bubble chart showed that inactivation of Insulin resistance might be the uppermost pathway for anti-obesity. We identi ed that the AC phytochemicals was contributed to synergistic effects (multi-pathway, muti-target) to alleviate obesity through PTC analysis. We conducted MDT to verify the most signi cant compound on a key target (IL6), thereby, con rmed Andrographolide as a key compound of AC on obesity. Overall, we elucidated a key pathway, target, and bioactive of AC against obesity, suggesting signi cant pharmacological basis for further clinical trials.

The orchestration of Cornus kousa fruit and gut microbiota for anti- obesity via integrated pharmacological analysis based on metabolomics

“…In 2014, more than 2 billion people, approximately one-third of the world population were overweight or around 5% of mortality is liable to OB [3]. OB is represented by excessive accumulation of fat in the tissue, leading unbalanced energy, inappropriate secretion of appetite hormones, and insulin resistance [4]. BMI (Body Mass Index) is a criteria to assess OB, its clinical standard is more than 30.0 or higher [5].…”