Elucidating the material basis and potential mechanisms of Ershiwuwei Lvxue Pill acting on rheumatoid arthritis by UPLC-Q-TOF/MS and network pharmacology

PLoS One. 2022 Feb 7;17(2):e0262469. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0262469. eCollection 2022.

Abstract

Ershiwuwei Lvxue Pill (ELP, མགྲིན་མཚལ་ཉེར་ལྔ།), a traditional Tibetan medicine preparation, has been used hundreds of years for the clinical treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in the highland region of Tibet, China. Nevertheless, its chemical composition and therapeutic mechanism are unclear. This study aimed to uncover the potentially effective components of ELP and the pharmacological mechanisms against RA by combing UPLC-Q-TOF/MS and network pharmacology. In this study, 96 compounds of ELP were identified or tentatively characterized based on UPLC-Q-TOF/MS analysis. Then, a total of 22 potential bioactive compounds were screened by TCMSP with oral bioavailability and drug-likeness. Preliminarily, 10 crucial targets may be associated with RA through protein-protein interaction network analysis. The functional enrichment analysis indicated that ELP exerted anti-RA effects probably by synergistically regulating many biological pathways, such as PI3K-Akt, Cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction, JAK-STAT, MAPK, TNF, and Toll-like receptor signaling pathway. In addition, good molecular docking scores were highlighted between five promising bioactive compounds (ellagic acid, quercetin, kaempferol, galangin, coptisine) and five core targets (PTGS2, STAT3, VEGFA, MAPK3, TNF). Overall, ELP can exert its anti-RA activity via multicomponent, multitarget, and multichannel mechanisms of action. However, further studies are needed to validate the biological processes and effect pathways of ELP.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Phosphatidylinositol 3-Kinases*

Grants and funding

This study was supported by National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFC1703904), Yi Zhang is the funder. Professor Zhang has made irreplaceable contributions in research design and manuscript review. This study was also supported by the Talent Introduction Project of Xihua University (Z211066), Chuan Liu, the first author, is the funder. I assume full responsibility for the research design, data collection and analysis, publication decisions and manuscript preparation of the paper.