TY - JOUR
T1 - Hepatoprotective Effects of a Functional Formula of Three Chinese Medicinal Herbs
T2 - Experimental Evidence and Network Pharmacology-Based Identification of Mechanism of Action and Potential Bioactive Components
AU - Li, Sha
AU - Wang, Ning
AU - Hong, Ming
AU - Tan, Hor Yue
AU - Pan, Guofeng
AU - Feng, Yibin
N1 - Funding Information:
The study was partially financial supported by grants from the research council of the University of Hong Kong (Project Codes: 104003422, 104003919, 104004092, 104004460), the Research Grants Committee (RGC) of Hong Kong, HKSAR (Project Codes: 766211, 17152116), Gala Family Trust (Project Code: 200007008), Government-Matching Grant Scheme (Project Code: 207060411), a donation from Vita Green Health Products Co., Ltd. (Project cord: 200007477) and Shenzhen Basic Research program (project code: JCYJ20140903112959964). The authors would like to express thanks to Keith Wong, Cindy Lee, and Alex Shek for their technical support, and express thanks to Brian Yeung for his careful proofreading of this manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 by the authors.
PY - 2018/2
Y1 - 2018/2
N2 - Various Chinese herbal medicines (CHMs) have shown beneficial liver protection effects. Jian-Gan-Bao (JGB), a functional herbal formula, consists of three famous CHMs, including Coriolus versicolor, Salvia miltiorrhiza and Schisandra chinensis, which has been used as a folk medicine for several chronic liver diseases. In the present study, we aim systemically to evaluate the effects of JGB on acute and chronic alcoholic liver diseases (ALD) as well as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in mouse models, and identify its potential bioactive components and mechanism of action. JGB showed preventive effects for acute and chronic ALD as well as NAFLD, while post-treatment of JGB showed no significant effect, suggesting the nature of JGB as a health supplement rather than a drug. Furthermore, a compound-target network was constructed to identify the potential bioactive compounds and pathways that regulate its hepatoprotective effects. There are 40 bioactive compounds and 15 related targets that have been identified via this network pharmacology study. Among them are miltirone, neocryptotanshinone II and deoxyshikonin, with desirable pharmaceutical properties. Pathways relating to inflammation, fatty acid oxidation, tumor necrosis factor (TNF) production and cell proliferation were predicted as bioactive compounds and potential underlying mechanisms, which should be the focus of study in this field in the future.
AB - Various Chinese herbal medicines (CHMs) have shown beneficial liver protection effects. Jian-Gan-Bao (JGB), a functional herbal formula, consists of three famous CHMs, including Coriolus versicolor, Salvia miltiorrhiza and Schisandra chinensis, which has been used as a folk medicine for several chronic liver diseases. In the present study, we aim systemically to evaluate the effects of JGB on acute and chronic alcoholic liver diseases (ALD) as well as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in mouse models, and identify its potential bioactive components and mechanism of action. JGB showed preventive effects for acute and chronic ALD as well as NAFLD, while post-treatment of JGB showed no significant effect, suggesting the nature of JGB as a health supplement rather than a drug. Furthermore, a compound-target network was constructed to identify the potential bioactive compounds and pathways that regulate its hepatoprotective effects. There are 40 bioactive compounds and 15 related targets that have been identified via this network pharmacology study. Among them are miltirone, neocryptotanshinone II and deoxyshikonin, with desirable pharmaceutical properties. Pathways relating to inflammation, fatty acid oxidation, tumor necrosis factor (TNF) production and cell proliferation were predicted as bioactive compounds and potential underlying mechanisms, which should be the focus of study in this field in the future.
KW - Coriolus versicolor
KW - Function herbal formula
KW - Liver disease
KW - Network pharmacology
KW - Salvia miltiorrhiza
KW - Schisandra chinensis
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85041664798&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/molecules23020352
DO - 10.3390/molecules23020352
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 29414910
AN - SCOPUS:85041664798
SN - 1420-3049
VL - 23
JO - Molecules
JF - Molecules
IS - 2
M1 - 352
ER -