To Explore the Mechanism of Ferulic Acid Against Liver Fibrosis Based on Network Pharmacology and Cell Experiment / 世界科学技术-中医药现代化

ABSTRACT

Objective To study the mechanism of ferulic acid(FA)on hepatic fibrosis(HF)based on network pharmacology,and establish an in vitro model of rat hepatic stellate Cell-T6(HSC-T6)according to the results.Methods The potential targets of FA were screened through PubChem,swisstargetprediction and pharmmapper,and overlapped with the FA targets screened in disgenet,genecards and OMIM.Then,protein protein interaction(PPI)was analyzed by using string platform.Gene ontology(go)and Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes(KEGG)pathway enrichment analysis were carried out for key targets by using R64 4.0.3,and the"component target disease"network diagram was constructed by Cytoscape 3.7.2 software.Based on this,the proliferation of HSC-T6 was detected by cell counting kit-8(CCK-8)method,and the grouping was determined:blank group and low-dose group(100 μg·mL-1 FA),medium dose group(200 μg·mL-1 FA),high dose group(400 μg·mL-1 FA)and positive control group(200 μg·mL-1 colchicine),the migration ability of HSC-T6 was detected by scratch test,and the content of HSC-T6 was detected by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay(ELISA)α-Alpha smooth muscle actin,α-Flow cytometry was used to detect the changes of HSC-T6 cycle,quantitative real time polymerase chain reaction(qRT-PCR)was used to detect the relative expression of JAK2 and STAT3 mRNA,and Western Blot was used to detect the molecular expression of JAK2 and STAT3 protein.Results 254 intersection targets of FA and HF were obtained.The core targets were signal transducer and activvator of Transcription(STAT3),albumin(ALB),protein kinase B(AKT1),tumor suppressor protein p53(TP53),epidermal growth factor receptor(EGFR)and caspase-3(CASP3).KEGG analysis showed that the action pathway of FA on HF mainly involved phosphatidylinositol 3 kinase protein kinase B(PI3K-Akt),vascular endothelial growth factor(VEGF),Janus kinase/signal transducer and activator of transcription(JAK/STAT)Tumor necrosis factor(TNF)and other pathways.The experimental results showed that in CCK-8 experiment,scratch experiment and ELISA experiment,compared with the blank group,the cell proliferation rate,migration ability and the expression of α-SMA protein decreased significantly(P<0.05).Compared with the blank group,the cycle arrest rate of low,medium and high dose groups and positive control group increased significantly(P<0.05).Compared with the blank group,the molecular weight and mRNA expression of JAK2 and STAT3 protein in low,medium and high dose groups and positive control group decreased gradually(P<0.05).Conclusion FA has the characteristics of multi-channel and multi-target.FA may inhibit the apoptosis of hepatic stellate cell(HSC)by down regulating JAK2 and STAT3 targets.