Xiaoerfupi alleviates the symptoms of functional dyspepsia by regulating the HTR3A and c-FOS.

AIM: To evaluate whether Xiaoerfupi (XEFP), a traditional Chinese medicine formula, can ameliorate functional dyspepsia (FD) through regulation of the HTR3A and c-FOS. METHOD: The FD rat model was established through administration of iodoacetamide (IA) and interval fasting. XEFP group rats received XEFP for 3 weeks. Detection of gastric emptying and gastrin were performed to assess the interventional effect of XEFP. The constituents of XEFP were submitted to BATMAN-TCM, an online bioinformatics analysis tool, to predict the targets related to dyspepsia. Furthermore, the prediction was validated via Western blot assay. RESULTS: XEFP enhanced gastric emptying of rats (XEFP middle dose vs. FD model: 71.87 ±â€¯15.21% vs. 30.07 ±â€¯12.76%, P <  0.01) and simultaneously increased gastrin in FD rats (XEFP middle dose vs. FD model: 63.61 ± 17.90 vs. 26.14 ± 7.78 pg/ml, P <  0.01). KEGG enrichment analysis revealed that the neuroactive ligand-receptor interaction was successfully enriched (P-value = 2.2E-13, Benjamini = 2.0E-11). Combining different Bioinformatics analysis implied that XEFP regulates HTR3A and c-FOS. Subsequently molecular biological studies confirmed that the expression of HTR3A and c-FOS in the model group was upregulated in rats in comparison with the control group. Furthermore, the expression of HTR3A and c-FOS in the XEFP group (middle dose) compared with the model group was significantly reduced (P <  0.01). CONCLUSION: XEFP may ameliorate FD through regulation of the HTR3A and c-FOS.

Precise and systematic survey of the efficacy of multicomponent drugs against functional dyspepsia.

Functional dyspepsia (FD) is one of the most prevalent functional gastrointestinal disorders, and more and more multicomponent drugs represented by traditional Chinese medicines have provided a favorable therapeutic effect in its treatment. However, their precise localization in the clinic, as well as corresponding mechanism, is ambiguous, thus hindering their widespread use. To meet this requirement, a precise and systematic approach based on a restriction of special disease-related molecules and the following network pharmacology analysis was developed and applied to a multicomponent conventional drug, XiaoErFuPi (XEFP) granules. Experimental verification of the results indicates that this approach can facilitate the prediction, and the precise and systematic efficacy of XEFP could be easily revealed, which shows that XEFP has an advantage over the positive control drug on lactate, gastrin, interleukin 4 and calcitonin gene-related peptide. Moreover, by the proteomics analysis, its superposition of multi-target effects was revealed and a new candidate target for the treatment of FD, striatin, was obtained and verified. This study provides a practicable precise approach for the investigation of the efficacy of multicomponent drugs against FD and offers a promising alternative for the systematical management of FD.