Identification of Bioactive Compounds and Potential Mechanisms of Fuzi in the Treatment of Ulcerative Colitis by Integrating Network Pharmacology and Experimental Validation

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Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease without efficient treatment. Fuzi has anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory properties. However, the bioactive compounds and mechanisms of fuzi in the treatment of UC are not completely understood. The active components of fuzi were retrieved from Traditional Chinese Medicine Database System Pharmacology and Analysis Platform; PharmMapper was used to predict the targets of the active components of fuzi; UC-related disease targets were obtained from Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man and Genecards databases, and Venny 2.1 was used to obtain common targets; Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) and Gene Ontology (GO) analyses were performed on the common targets using R 4.0.2. STRING and Cytoscape 3.9.0 was used to construct a protein-protein interaction (PPI) network for the intersection targets. We then determined the role of the candidate molecule from fuzi, Higenamine (Hig), in a mouse model of dextran sulfate sodium (DSS)-induced colitis. In total, 21 active components and 420 corresponding targets of fuzi were obtained, of which 224 common targets were identified by intersecting with UC-related targets. The GO, KEGG, and PPI results suggested that fuzi and Hig may target RAC-alpha serine/threonine-protein kinase (AKT) to regulate the phosphoinositide-3-kinase (PI3K)/AKT pathway in UC. Animal experiments have shown that Hig treatment greatly reduced DSS-induced colitis, as measured by the disease activity index score, colonic inflammation, and intestinal barrier integrity. Mechanistically, Hig downregulated the DSS-induced PI3K-AKT signaling pathway by inhibiting AKT phosphorylation. Altogether, Hig alleviated DSS-induced colitis in mice, possibly by inhibiting colon inflammation and improving the intestinal barrier by regulating the PI3K-AKT signaling pathway. The active component Hig from fuzi is likely to play a role in the treatment of UC.

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