Clinical and Translational Research
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Oncol. Jan 15, 2023; 15(1): 90-101
Published online Jan 15, 2023. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v15.i1.90
Network pharmacology-based analysis of heat clearing and detoxifying drug JC724 on the treatment of colorectal cancer
Hua-Zhen Tang, Zhen-Peng Yang, Shuai Lu, Bing Wang, Yu-Ying Wang, Xi-Bo Sun, Jin-Xiu Qu, Ben-Qiang Rao
Hua-Zhen Tang, Zhen-Peng Yang, Shuai Lu, Bing Wang, Yu-Ying Wang, Xi-Bo Sun, Jin-Xiu Qu, Ben-Qiang Rao, Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Beijing Shijitan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100038, China
Hua-Zhen Tang, Zhen-Peng Yang, Shuai Lu, Bing Wang, Yu-Ying Wang, Jin-Xiu Qu, Ben-Qiang Rao, Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Key Laboratory of Cancer FSMP for State Market Regulation, Beijing 100038, China
Xi-Bo Sun, Department of Breast Surgery, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Shandong First Medical University, Taian 271000, Shandong Province, China
Author contributions: Tang HZ and Yang ZP designed this study; Yang ZP, Lu S, Wang B and Qu JX performed the literature review and collected the data; Tang HZ, Wang YY and Sun XB analyzed the data; Tang HZ drafted the manuscript; Rao BQ reviewed the manuscript critically; all authors contributed to editing and approved the final manuscript version.
Supported by The National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 82074061; and Beijing Natural Science Foundation Proposed Program, No. 7202076.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Beijing Shijitan Hospital, Capital Medical University Institutional Review Board [Approval No. sjtkyll-lx-2021(41)].
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of financial and non-financial competing interests.
Data sharing statement: The data used in the study is available upon request to the corresponding author.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Ben-Qiang Rao, DPhil, PhD, Associate Chief Physician, Professor, Surgeon, Surgical Oncologist, Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Beijing Shijitan Hospital, Capital Medical University, No. 10 Tieyi Road, Yangfangdian, Haidian District, Beijing 100038, China. raobenqiang@bjsjth.cn
Received: September 30, 2022
Peer-review started: September 30, 2022
First decision: October 21, 2022
Revised: October 28, 2022
Accepted: December 21, 2022
Article in press: December 21, 2022
Published online: January 15, 2023
Abstract
BACKGROUND

Heat-clearing and detoxifying drugs has protective effect on colorectal cancer (CRC). Given the complicated features of Traditional Chinese medicine formulas, network pharmacology is an effective approach for studying the multiple interactions between drugs and diseases.

AIM

To systematically explore the anticancer mechanism of heat-clearing and detoxifying drug JC724.

METHODS

This study obtained the active compounds and their targets in JC724 from Traditional Chinese Medicine System Pharmacology Database. In addition, the CRC targets were obtained from Drugbank, TTD, DisGeNET and GeneCards databases. We performed transcriptome analysis of differentially expressed genes in CRC treated with JC724. Venn diagram was used to screen the JC724-CRC intersection targets as candidate targets. Core targets were selected by protein-protein interaction network and herb ingredient-target-disease network analysis. The functional and pathway of core targets were analysed by enrichment analysis.

RESULTS

We found 174 active ingredients and 283 compound targets from JC724. 940 CRC-related targets were reserved from the four databases and 304 CRC differentially expressed genes were obtained by transcriptome analysis. We constructed the network and found that the five core ingredients were quercetin, β Beta sitosterol, wogonin, kaempferol and baicalein. The core JC724-CRC targets were CYP1A1, HMOX1, CXCL8, NQO1 and FOSL1. JC724 acts on multiple signaling pathways associated with CRC, including the Nrf2 signaling pathway, oxidative stress, and the IL-17 signaling pathway.

CONCLUSION

In this study, we systematically analyzed the active ingredients, core targets and main mechanisms of JC724 in the treatment of CRC. This study could bring a new perspective to the heat-clearing and detoxifying therapy of CRC.

Keywords: Heat-clearing and detoxifying therapy, Colorectal cancer, Network pharmacology, Transcriptomics

Core Tip: We analyzed the core drug ingredients, genes and pathways of heat-clearing and detoxifying drug JC724 on the treatment of colorectal cancer (CRC), and illustrated the potential mechanisms comprehensively. We revealed that heat-clearing and detoxifying treatment can inhibit oxidative damage and inflammatory damage in CRC.