IMR Press / FBL / Volume 29 / Issue 3 / DOI: 10.31083/j.fbl2903093
Open Access Original Research
The Mechanism of Polygonum Hydropiper L-Coptis Chinensis in the Treatment of Ulcerative Colitis Based on Network Pharmacology and Experimental Validation
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1 Key Laboratory of Tropical Translational Medicine of Ministry of Education, Hainan Key Laboratory for Research and Development of Tropical Herbs, Haikou Key Laboratory of Li Nationality Medicine, School of Pharmacy, Hainan Medical University, 571199 Haikou, Hainan, China
2 Department of Pathology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Hainan Medical University, 570102 Haikou, Hainan, China
*Correspondence: niuhaiyan@hotmail.com (Haiyan Niu); hy0207054@hainmc.edu.cn (Shouzhong Ren)
Front. Biosci. (Landmark Ed) 2024, 29(3), 93; https://doi.org/10.31083/j.fbl2903093
Submitted: 23 October 2023 | Revised: 16 January 2024 | Accepted: 31 January 2024 | Published: 8 March 2024
Copyright: © 2024 The Author(s). Published by IMR Press.
This is an open access article under the CC BY 4.0 license.
Abstract

Background: Polygonum hydropiper L (PH) was widely used to treat dysentery, gastroenteritis, diarrhea and other diseases. Coptis chinensis (CC) had the effects of clearing dampness-heat, purging fire, and detoxifying. Study confirmed that flavonoids in PH and alkaloids in CC alleviated inflammation to inhibit the development of intestinal inflammation. However, how PH-CC affects UC was unclear. Therefore, the aim of this study is to analyze the mechanism of PH-CC on ulcerative colitis (UC) through network pharmacology and in vivo experiments. Methods: The active ingredients and targets of PH-CC and targets of UC were screened based on related databases. The core targets of PH-CC on UC was predicted by protein-protein interaction network (PPI), and then the Gene Ontology-biological processes (GO-BP) function enrichment analysis was conducted using the Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery (DAVID) database. The binding activity between pyroptosis proteins, core targets and effective ingredients were verified based on molecular docking technology. Finally, combined with the results of network pharmacology and literature research, the mechanism of PH-CC against UC was verified by in vivo experiments. Results: There were 23 active components and 191 potential targets in PH-CC, 5275 targets in UC, and 141 co-targets. GO-BP functional analysis of 141 co-targets showed that the first 20 biological processes were closely related to inflammation and lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulation. Furthermore, core targets had good binding activity with the corresponding compounds. Animal experiment indicated that PH-CC effectively prevented weight loss in UC mice, reduced the disease activity index (DAI) score, maintained colon length, suppressed myeloperoxidase (MPO) activity, inhibited pyroptosis protein expression, and downregulated the levels of IL-18 and IL-1β to alleviate intestinal inflammation. Conclusions: The results of network pharmacology and animal experiments showed that PH-CC suppressed the inflammatory response, restored colon morphology, and inhibited pyroptosis in UC mice. Thus, PH-CC may improve UC by regulating the NOD-like receptor protein domain 3 (NLRP3)/Caspase-1 signaling pathway.

Keywords
Polygonum hydropiper L-Coptis chinensis
ulcerative colitis
inflammatory response
NLRP3/Caspase-1 signal pathway
proptosis
network pharmacology
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Funding
82260920/National Natural Science Foundation of China
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