Integrating Network Pharmacology and Experimental Validation to Decipher the Mechanism of Action of Astragalus–Atractylodes Herb Pair in Treating Hepatocellular Carcinoma

作者：Yuling Liang, Yuqing Xie, Xiaoli Liu, Lihua Yu, Huiwen Yan, Zimeng Shang, Yuan Wu, Xue Cai, Wanxin Shi, Juan Du, Zhiyun Yang · 发表于：Drug Design Development and Therapy · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.2147/dddt.s459593 · 被引用次数：8 · 研究领域：Traditional Chinese Medicine Analysis、Ferroptosis and cancer prognosis、Flavonoids in Medical Research

Purpose: Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) therapy is an important means to treat hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), Astragalus (Latin name: Hedysarum Multijugum Maxim ; Chinese name: Huangqi, HQ) and Atractylodes (Latin name: Atractylodes Macrocephala Koidz ; Chinese name: Baizhu, BZ) (HQBZ), a classic herb pair, is often used in combination to HCC. However, the main components and potential mechanisms of HQBZ therapy in HCC remain unclear. This study aimed to identify the potential active ingredients and molecular mechanisms of action of HQBZ in HCC treatment. Methods: The HQBZ-Compound-Target-HCC network and HQBZ-HCC transcriptional regulatory network were constructed to screen the core active compound components and targets of HQBZ therapy for HCC. Molecular docking techniques are used to verify the stability of binding core active compound components to targets. GO and KEGG enrichment analysis were used to explore the signaling pathway of HQBZ in HCC treatment, the mechanism of HQBZ treatment of HCC was verified based on in vivo H22 tumor bearing mice and in vitro cell experiments. Results: Network pharmacology and molecular docking studies showed that HQBZ treatment of HCC was related to the targeted regulation of IL-6 and STAT3 by the active compound biatractylolide, KEGG pathway enrichment analysis suggest that HQBZ may play a role in the treatment of HCC through IL-6/STAT3 signaling pathway. In vitro experiment results proved that HQBZ could regulate IL-6/STAT3 signali...