Published online Jan 15, 2023. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v15.i1.90
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
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.
To systematically explore the anticancer mechanism of heat-clearing and detoxifying drug JC724.
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.
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.
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.
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.