Analysis of active patents to investigate the frequency and patterns of Chinese herbal extract combinations claiming to treat heart disease

Objective:Using Chinese patents in force to investigate the frequency and patterns of Chinese herbal extract combinations claiming to treat heart disease.Methods:Patent documents were retrieved from the official website of the State Intellectual Property Office of the People’s Republic China.Cluster,frequency,and fuzzy cluster analyses were applied.Results:A high number of patents in force included high-frequency herbs such as Salvia miltiorrhiza,Panax ginseng,and Panax notoginseng,as well as high-frequency herbal families such as Araliaceae,Leguminosae,Labiatae,and Umbelliferae.Herb pairs such as P.ginsengþOphiopogon japonicus,S.miltiorrhizaþDalbergia odorifera,and P.ginsengþSchisandra chinensis are also commonly used,as well as herbal family pairs such as AraliaceaeþLiliaceae,LauraceaeþLeguminosae,and AraliaceaeþSchisandraceae.Traditional treatment principles for preventing and treating heart diseases was most-commonly based on simultaneously treating the liver and heart and treating the lung and spleen secondarily for choosing herbal combinations.Conclusion:Most of the high-frequency Chinese herbs in the patents investigated belong to the high-frequency herbal families,and herb pairs were commonly selected to coincide with the commonly-used herbal family pairs.Low-frequency Chinese herbs were also used,but generally belonged to the high-frequency herbal families,and were therefore similar to the highfrequency herbs in terms of traditional categories of taste and channel entered.The results reflect the use of traditional principles of formula composition,and suggest that these principles may indeed be an effective guide for further research and development of Chinese herbal extract combinations to prevent and treat heart diseases.

Investigation and experimental validation of curcumin-related mechanisms against hepatocellular carcinoma based on network pharmacology

Objective:To determine the potential molecular mechanisms underlying the therapeutic effect of curcumin on hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC)by network pharmacology and experimental in vitro validation.Methods:The predictive targets of curcumin or HCC were collected from several databases.the identified overlapping targets were crossed with Gene Ontology(GO)and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes(KEGG)analyses using the Database for Annotation,Visualization,and Integrated Discovery(DAVID)platform.Two of the candidate pathways were selected to conduct an experimental verification.The 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide tetrazolium(MTT)assay was used to determine the effect of curcumin on the viability of Hep G2 and LO2 cells.The apoptosis and autophagy of Hep G2 cells were respectively detected by flow cytometry and transmission electron microscopy.Besides,western blot and real-time polymerase chain reaction(PCR)were employed to verify the p53 apoptotic pathway and adenosine 5’-monophosphate(AMP)-activated protein kinase(AMPK)autophagy pathway.Hep G2 cells were pretreated with pifithrin-α(PFT-α)and GSK690693 for further investigation.Results:The 167 pathways analyzed by KEGG included apoptosis,autophagy,p53,and AMPK pathways.The GO enrichment analysis demonstrated that curcumin was involved in cellular response to drug,regulation of apoptotic pathway,and so on.The in vitro experiments also confirmed that curcumin can inhibit the growth of Hep G2 cells by promoting the apoptosis of p53 pathway and autophagy through the AMPK pathway.Furthermore,the protein and messenger RNA(m RNA)of the two pathways were downregulated in the inhibitor-pretreated group compared with the experimental group.The damage-regulated autophagy modulator(DRAM)in the PFT-α-pretreated group was downregulated,and p62 in the GSK690693-pretreated group was upregulated.Conclusions:Curcumin can treat HCC through the p53 apoptotic pathway and the AMPK/Unc-51-like kinase 1(ULK1)autophagy pathway,in which the mutual transformation of autophagy and apoptosis may occur through DRAM and p62.