Anti-glioma mechanism of pterostilbene by regulating apoptosis and GSDME-mediated pyroptosis pathways: a study based on network pharmacology and experimental research / 中国中药杂志

This study aimed to explore the anti-glioma effect of natural compound pterostilbene(PTE) through regulating pyroptosis and apoptosis pathways, and to analyze the possible anti-glioma pathways and targets of PTE by network pharmacology and molecular docking. In this study, the action targets of PTE and the glioma targets were obtained by network pharmacology to construct a target network and a protein-protein interaction(PPI) network to predict the possible action targets of PTE against glioma. Molecular docking was performed on the core targets by AutoDock and the action pathways of PTE against glioma were predicted by enrichment analysis. In addition, the effect of PTE on the viability of U87MG and GL261 glioma cells was detected by CCK-8 assay. Clone formation assay and cell scratching assay were used to explore the effect of different concentrations of PTE on the proliferation and migration, respectively of glioma cells. Hoechst staining was used to observe PTE-induced apoptosis in glioma cells. The changes in mitochondrial membrane potential were detected by JC-1 staining. The pyroptosis-inducing effect of PTE on glioma cells was observed by inverted microscopy and lactate dehydrogenase(LDH) assay. Hoechst 33342/PI dual staining assay was performed to detect the integrity of glioma cell membranes. The expressions of pyroptosis and apoptosis-related proteins in glioma cells after PTE induction were determined by Western blot. In this study, 37 anti-glioma targets of PTE were obtained, and enrichment analysis suggested that PTE exerted anti-glioma effects through various signaling pathways including cancer pathway, proteoglycan in cancer, PI3K/AKT pathway, and apoptosis regulatory pathway. Molecular docking revealed that PTE had good binding activity with the main targets. Compared with the control group, PTE significantly reduced the viability as well as the proliferation, migration and adhesion abilities of U87MG and GL261 cells; it induced the apoptosis of the two glioma cells and the decrease of mitochondrial membrane potential in U87MG cells, and the effects increased with the increase of drug concentration. Compared with the conditions in the control group, glioma cells in the PTE group had increased pyroptosis-specific appearance and gradually increased LDH release; the number of PI positive cells was significantly elevated with the increase of PTE concentration as revealed by Hoechst 33342/PI staining; the expression levels of apoptosis-related factors cleaved PARP1 and B-cell lymphoma-2(Bcl-2) associated X(BAX) in the PTE group were markedly up-regulated, while the expression level of Bcl-2 was markedly down-regulated; the activation levels of pyroptosis-related proteins cleaved caspase-3 and gasdermin E-N(GSDME-N) had a remarkable rise in the PTE group, while no significant changes were found in the activation levels of gasdermin D-N(GSDMD-N) and cleaved caspase-1. In summary, PTE plays an anti-glioma role by inhibiting cell viability, proliferation, and migration and activating the caspase-3/GSDME-mediated pyroptosis pathway and mitochondrial apoptosis pathway.

Study on mechanism of Trillium tschonoskii Maxim in treatment of myocardial ischemia based on network pharmacology and molecular docking / 中国药理学通报

Aim To reveal the aetion mechanism of Trillium tschonoskii Maxim (TTM) in the treatment of myoeardial ischemia ( MI) by using network pharma¬cology combined with molecular docking.Methods Compounds of TTM were detected and fished out from TCMID, TCM@TAIWAN , BATMAN-TCM database, and the literature data from PubMed , CNK1, and WAN- FANGD database.PharmMapper database was used to find the targets related to compounds, and DISGeNET, GeneCards, DrugBank and OMIM databases were used to find the targets related to Ml.The predictive targets of TTM in the treatment of Ml were obtained.Cytosca- ope 3.1.2 Software and String database were used to build compound-target network and PP1 network.Gene ontology ( GO ) functional enrichment analysis and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes ( KEGG ) pathway enrichment analysis were performed by utili¬zing the CludterProfiler Software package of RStudio software.The molecular docking was used for verifying the results of network analysis.Results The 10 active compounds of TTM were screened , and 13 core targets of Ml were predicted, such as ALB, EGFR, MAPK1 , CASP3,ESR1 ,etc.A total of 28 Ml-related signaling pathways were fished out.The results of molecular docking showed that the core active ingredients had good binding activity with the key targets.Conclusion TTM may play a role in the treatment of Ml through regulating multiple ingredients, multiple pathways, and multiple targets.