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Brief

China Journal of Chinese Materia Medica, the 1st in the field of TCM, is supervised by China Association for Science and Technology and sponsored by Institute of Chinese Pharmaceutical Association. The journal is China's earliest comprehensive core journal of traditional Chinese medicine, and always maintains the circulation top in the professional areas. The journal publishes the latest research and progress of traditional Chinese medicine and takes a leading position in numbers of articles published, downloads and citations among all journals in this discipline. Its scope covers new achievements, technologies, methods, experiences and concepts resulting from the research on Chinese materia medica pursuant to Chinese medical and pharmaceutical theories, traditional experiences, and modern science and technology, including medicinal resources and identification, cultivation, processing, preparation, chemistry, pharmacology, theory of Chinese pharmacy and clinical practice, bencaological study. The journal is included in CA, JST and CSCD.
Editorial Board

Honorary Editor-in-Chief
Xiao Peigen
Editor-in-Chief
Wang Yongyan

Associate Editors
Zhang Boli, Hu Zhibi, Yao Xinsheng, Li Lianda, Li Dapeng, Yang Baofeng, Zhou Chaofan, Huang Luqi, Chen Shilin, Li He.

Executive Editorial Board
Cai Shaoqing, Chen Shilin

Molecular mechanism of Puerariae Lobatae Radix in treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma based on network pharmacology

ZHOU Min;ZHOU Yuan;CHENG Ye;XU Nan;LI Wei-bing;WU Cheng-yu;CHEN Yan

China Journal of Chinese Materia Medica,2020,Vol 45,No. 17

To investigate the potential mechanism of Puerariae Lobatae Radix in the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) by network pharmacology and in vitro cell experiment. The main active components of Puerariae Lobatae Radix and their predicted targets were obtained from TCMSP, and the disease targets were obtained from GeneCards database. The disease and drug prediction targets were intersected to select the common potential therapeutic targets. The “compound-target-disease” network diagram was constructed in Cytoscape 3.7.1, and the common targets were input into the STRING database to build the PPI network. GO function and KEGG pathway enrichment analysis on effective targets were performed by R software. Autodock vina 1.1.2 was used for molecular docking. Finally, the core targets and pathways were preliminarily verified by in vitro experiments. The proliferation of human HCC cells was detected by CCK-8 and EdU enzyme staining, and the expressions of PTEN, PDK1, Akt and GSK3 were detected by Western blot. In this study, 10 components of Puerariae Lobatae Radix (9 components involved in HCC-related targets and signaling pathways), 149 HCC-related targets, and 156 signaling pathways were screened out. The results of network analysis indicated that Puerariae Lobatae Radix may play an anti-HCC effect on key targets, such as Akt, IL6, MAPK3, EGFR, and key pathways, such as PI3K-Akt. The results of molecular docking indicated that puerarin, genistein and daidzein had good binding abilities with the key targets such as AKT1, MAPK3, MAPK1 and CASP3, and puerarin had the lowest Vina score with AKT1 and MAPK3 and also similar to them. In vitro cell experiments confirmed that puerarin had a significantly inhibitory effect on the proliferation of human HCC cells. Western blot results showed that puerarin could increase the phosphorylation of PTEN in human HCC cells through the PTEN/Akt/GSK3 β signaling pathway, and the phosphorylation level of its downstream Akt decreased. This series of studies confirm that puerarin can treat HCC by blocking PTEN/Akt/GSK3 β cellular signaling pathway, so as to provide ideas for subsequent studies for the molecular mechanism of puerarin in the treatment of liver cancer.

Mechanism of Alisma orientale in treating nonalcoholic fatty liver disease

DAI Jiang-dong;LIN Chuan-yan;YANG Bing;WANG Yue;CUI Li;FENG Liang;JIA Xiao-bin

China Journal of Chinese Materia Medica,2020,Vol 45,No. 17

In this study, active ingredients, potential targets, and mechanism of Alisma orientale in the treatment of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) were clarified via network pharmacology technology combined with molecular docking technology and experimental verification, providing a meaningful basis for its clinical application. The active ingredients of A. orientale were screened through traditional Chinese medicine pharmacology database (TCMSP) based on the oral bioavailability (OB) and drug-likeness (DL), and the potential targets related to both active ingredients and NAFLD were predicted through protein databases. The “active ingredient-potential target” network was constructed by using Cytoscape software, and the molecular docking was performed between active ingredients and potential targets. KEGG pathway analysis and enrichment analysis were performed through the Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery (DAVID). Target GO annotation was analyzed by ClueGO software. The protein expression levels were detected by Western blot assay and immunocytochemistry, and the reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation was measured by the fluorescent probe. The results revealed that 7 active ingredients of A. orientale were obtained from TCMSP; 140 ingredient-related targets were screened; 59 potential targets were obtained by intersecting disease targets with ingredient-related targets. Molecular docking showed that 7 active ingredients of A. orientale could act on the potential targets including 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A reductase (HMGCR) and tyrosine-protein phosphatase non-receptor type 1 (PTPN1). In addition, KEGG enrichment analysis showed that the potential targets were mainly enriched in inflammatory mediator regulation, insulin resistance, neuroactive ligand-receptor interaction, vascular smooth muscle contraction, Fc γ receptor (Fc γR)-mediated phagocytosis and other related pathways of tryptophan (TRP) channel. GO enrichment analysis showed that potential targets mainly affected the biological processes, such as G-protein-coupled receptor signaling pathway, organic hydroxyl compound transport, positive regulation of lipid biosynthesis process, and positive regulation of lipid metabolic process. Western blot, immunocytochemistry, and fluorescent probe confirmed that the A. orientale extract could reduce HMGCR and PTPN1 expression levels effectively, and also reduce ROS production level of HepG2 cells. This study systematically revealed the material basis and mechanism of A. orientale in regulating NAFLD through multi-component, multi-target, and multi-pathway characteristics, which provided a theoretical basis and scientific basis for the clinical application of A. orientale.