Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2019. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jun 7, 2019; 25(21): 2603-2622
Published online Jun 7, 2019. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v25.i21.2603
Systems pharmacology approach reveals protective mechanisms of Jian-Pi Qing-Chang decoction on ulcerative colitis
You-Lan Chen, Yi-Yuan Zheng, Yan-Cheng Dai, Ya-Li Zhang, Zhi-Peng Tang
You-Lan Chen, Yi-Yuan Zheng, Yan-Cheng Dai, Ya-Li Zhang, Zhi-Peng Tang, Institute of Digestive Disease, Longhua Hospital, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai 200032, China
Yan-Cheng Dai, Department of Gastroenterology, Shanghai Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine, Shanghai 200082, China
Author contributions: Chen YL and Zheng YY contributed equally as co-first authors and finished the major experiments; Dai YC and Zhang YL performed the experiments and analyzed the data; Tang ZP provided the funding and designed the research; all authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by the National Natural Science Funds of China, No. 81573892, No. 81873253, and No. 81704009.
Institutional review board statement: This study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board of Institute of Digestive Disease, Longhua Hospital, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai, China.
Institutional animal care and use committee statement: All procedures involving animals were reviewed and approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine (IACUC protocol number Approval number: SZY201707005).
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest related to this study.
Data sharing statement: Supplementary information accompanying this paper is included in its Supplementary information file.
ARRIVE guidelines statement: The ARRIVE Guidelines have been adopted.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (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: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Zhi-Peng Tang, MD, PhD, Director, Doctor, Professor, Institute of Digestive Disease, Longhua Hospital, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, No. 725, South Wanping Road, Shanghai 200032, China. zhipengtang@sohu.com
Telephone: +86-21-64385700 Fax: +86-21-64385700
Received: March 2, 2019
Peer-review started: March 3, 2019
First decision: March 20, 2019
Revised: March 27, 2019
Accepted: April 19, 2019
Article in press: April 20, 2019
Published online: June 7, 2019
Processing time: 96 Days and 19.8 Hours
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a kind of common chronic disease with complex etiology, and it is difficult to achieve a satisfactory curative effect by conventional drug treatments. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical development has always been an urgent dilemma in the field of medical research. Thus, promising and novel research methods are urgently needed to be explored for UC.

Research motivation

Mucosal inflammation and impairment of epithelial barrier function were thought to mediate the pathogenesis of UC. HIF-1α was also demonstrated to be associated with those processes. Thus, we explored the potential pharmacological mechanism of Jian-Pi Qing-Chang (JPQC) on UC, which might provide a novel complementary tactic to the standard treatment.

Research objectives

To explore the potential pharmacological mechanism of JPQC on UC based on systems pharmacology approach.

Research methods

Systems pharmacology was used in this research to explore the potential pharmacological mechanism of JPQC on UC, and cell co-culture assay was applied to better simulate the physiological environment in vivo.

Research results

The study showed the protective effect of JPQC on UC through cell and animal experiments.

Research conclusions

JPQC could improve the mucosal inflammatory response and intestinal epithelial barrier function via the NF-κB/HIF-1α signalling pathway.

Research perspectives

The feasibility of systematic pharmacology was proved in this research, and further interdisciplinary research and integrated analyses are necessary in the pharmaceutical development of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), which might provide new perspectives on the development and clinical practice of TCM.