Aim and Objective:
Five-Flavor Sophora flavescens Enteric-Coated Capsules (FSEC)
are the only proprietary Chinese medicine approved for the treatment of ulcerative colitis (UC) in
China. Phase II and III clinical trials have shown that the curative effect of FSEC in relieving UC
was not inferior to that of mesalazine granules and enteric-coated tablets, but its pharmacological
mechanism is unclear. Therefore, the network pharmacology is used to reveal the more
comprehensive effective components and targets of FSEC in the treatment of UC.
Methods:
We screened the components of FSEC based on the TCMSP database, determined the
action targets of these compounds through target fishing, and integrated the UC disease targets of
several disease gene databases. The FSEC-UC composite targets were obtained by matching the
two results, and then a PPI network was constructed to analyze the relationship between these
targets, and the core targets were selected by topological correlation parameters. Finally, GO-BP
and KEGG enrichment analyses were carried out using the clusterProfiler software package.
Results:
One hundred and sixty active components of FSEC were identified and 77 targets were
obtained. Of these, 30 core targets were the main targets of FESC in the treatment of UC. And
quercetin, kaempferol, luteolin and mangiferin were regarded as the core active components of
FSEC. The results screened by GO and KEGG enrichment analysis showed that FSEC played a
comprehensive therapeutic role in immune recognition, anti-inflammation and antioxidation
mainly through IL-17, TNF, Toll-like receptor, NF-kappa B, and Th17 cell differentiation.
Conclusion:
The molecular mechanism of UC remission induced by FSEC was predicted by
network pharmacology. These findings provide an important theoretical basis for further study of
the effective substances and mechanism of FSEC in the treatment of UC.