Qingre Xingyu recipe exerts inhibiting effects on ulcerative colitis development by inhibiting TNFα/NLRP3/Caspase-1/IL-1ß pathway and macrophage M1 polarization.

As a chronic inflammatory bowel disease, ulcerative colitis (UC) imposes a significant burden on public healthcare worldwide due to its increasing morbidity. Chinese medicines are regarded as potent therapeutic agents for UC treatment with minimal side effects. In the present study, we sought to determine the novel role of a traditional medicine Qingre Xingyu (QRXY) recipe in the development of UC and aimed to contribute to the currently available knowledge about UC by exploring the downstream mechanism of QRXY recipe in UC. Mouse models of UC were established by injections with dextran sulphate sodium (DSS), where the expression of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNFα), NLR family pyrin domain containing 3 (NLRP3), and interleukin-1ß (IL-1ß) was determined followed by an analysis of their interactions. The DSS-treated NLRP3 knockout (-/-) Caco-2 cell model was successfully constructed. The in vitro and in vivo effects of the QRXY recipe on UC were investigated with the determination of disease activity index (DAI), histopathological scores, transepithelial electrical resistance, FITC-dextran, as well as cell proliferation and apoptosis. In vivo and in vitro experiments indicated that the QRXY recipe reduced the degree of intestinal mucosal injury of UC mice and functional damage of DSS-induced Caco-2 cells by inhibition of the TNFα/NLRP3/caspase-1/IL-1ß pathway and M1 polarization of macrophages, and TNFα overexpression or NLRP3 knockdown could counterweigh the therapeutic effects of QRXY recipe. To conclude, our study elicited that QRXY inhibited the expression of TNFα and inactivated the NLRP3/Caspase-1/IL-1ß pathway, thereby alleviating intestinal mucosal injury and relieving UC in mice.

Dual-targeted colon-based integrated micelle drug delivery system for treatment of ulcerative colitis.

Emodin (EMO) is an active ingredient of Chinese traditional medicine with the potential to reportedly treat ulcerative colitis (UC). However, the solubility of EMO in water is poor coupled with low oral bioavailability, whilst existing conventional oral preparations of the drug lack targeting ability. Thus, this work sought to design and fabricate a mannose modified colon targeted micelle drug delivery system comprising quantum dots (QDs) and EMO to obtain Eu-CS-Man-Ps-P(HEMA-DMAM)/EMO-QDs, which exhibited stable physicochemical properties, smaller average sized droplets (226.22 ± 1.83 nm), better polydispersity (PDI = 0.060 ± 0.005), negative ζ-potential (-19.19 ± 0.89 mV) and high efficiency of encapsulation (95.14 ± 0.23%). We observed Eu-CS-Man-Ps-P(HEMA-DMAM)/EMO-QDs to be an effective approach for the improvement of EMO solubility in an aqueous medium with an increased oral bioavailability (3.23 times higher than native drug) of the drug. Besides, the micelle could increase the retention and release of EMO in colonic ulcers through multi-stage targeting, improve oral bioavailability, regulate the expression of inflammatory factors and repair damaged tissues, which helped us to achieve the design goal of integrated diagnosis and treatment of UC. Conclusively, the therapeutic effect of EMO was enhanced through an integrated micelle, which exhibited good prospects in improving solubility and oral biological availability.

[Network pharmacological analysis and preliminary validation of mechanisms of Baitouweng Decoction in treatment of ulcerative colitis].

The aim of this paper was to explore the pharmacological mechanism of Baitouweng Decoction in the treatment of ulcerative colitis(UC) by network pharmacology and to preliminarily verify the related targets by animal experiments. Cytoscape software was used to construct "ingredient-target-disease" network through TCMSP, GeneCards and Uniprot databases. The protein interaction network was constructed using STRING database, and the core targets were speculated. The GO and KEGG enrichment analysis was conducted using R software. Autodock Vina software was used for molecular docking of ingredients and core targets. UC mice induced by dextran sodium sulfate(DSS) were treated by Baitouweng Decoction. The pathological changes of colon tissues were observed by HE staining, and the expression levels of related genes were analyzed by immunohistochemistry.The results showed that 26 active ingre-dients and 30 core targets were found in Baitouweng Decoction through network pharmacology. GO enrichment analysis showed that these genes mainly affected nuclear receptor activity, transcription factor activity, steroid hormone receptor activity, ubiquitin-like protein ligase binding, protein heterodimerization activity, transcription cofactor binding and other biological processes. KEGG enrichment analysis showed that P53 signaling pathway, EGFR signaling pathway, TNF signaling pathway, PI3 K-AKT signaling pathway and some cancer-related pathways were enriched. Molecular docking showed that EGFR, PPARG, CASP3, NOS3, caspase-9, CCND1, ADH, IL6 and NFKB1 were better docked with active ingredients. The experiments verified that Baitouweng Decoction could improve the colon pathology of mice, and EGFR is one of the related targets. Our study suggested that Baitouweng Decoction could treat UC through multiple targets and pathways, which provided a theoretical basis for future research.

[Medication regularity and potential targets of Professor XU Jing-fan's prescription for treating ulcerative colitis].

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a chronic nonspecific inflammation mainly involving rectum and colon mucosa, which seriously affects the health and quality of life of patients, and is listed as one of modern refractory diseases by WHO. Professor XU Jing-fan, a great master of traditional Chinese medicine, has accumulated rich experiences in the treatment of UC. The study collected Professor XU's 77 prescriptions of treating UC, analyzed the frequency of traditional Chinese medicines and there categories, and investigated the medication regularity by the system clustering method. The findings showed that the most frequently used drugs were clearing-heat herbs, which were followed by hemostatic herbs, excreting-dampness herbs, improving-digestion herbs and tonifying-Qi herbs. At the same time, the commonly combined drugs were excavated. Finally, in order to analyze potential molecular targets of the frequently used herbs, GO enrichment analysis and KEGG signal pathway enrichment analysis were performed with bioinformatics analysis tool for molecular mechanism of traditional Chinese medicine (BATMAN-TCM). The results indicated that Chinese herbal compounds may treat UC by activating PPAR-γ pathway and regulating intestinal inflammation. The exact mechanisms shall be verified through subsequent molecular biological experiments.