Icariin, an Up-and-Coming Bioactive Compound Against Neurological Diseases: Network Pharmacology-Based Study and Literature Review.

Icariin is a biologically active substance in Epimedii herba that is used for the treatment of neurologic disorders. However, a comprehensive analysis of the molecular mechanisms of icariin is lacking. In this review, we present a brief history of the use of icariin for medicinal purposes; describe the active chemical components of Epimedii herba; and examine the evidence from experimental studies that have uncovered molecular targets of icariin in different diseases. We also constructed a protein-protein interaction network and carried out Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes functional enrichment analyses to predict the therapeutic actions of icariin in nervous system diseases including Alzheimer disease, Parkinson disease, ischemic stroke, depressive disorder, multiple sclerosis, glioblastoma, and hereditary spastic paraplegias. The results of our analyses can guide future studies on the application of icariin to the treatment of neurologic disorders.

Investigation of the Potential Mechanism Governing the Effect of the Shen Zhu San on COVID-19 by Network Pharmacology.

BACKGROUND: Since December 2019, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) due to SARS-CoV-2 infection has emerged in Wuhan and rapidly spread throughout China and even to other countries. Combined therapy with modern medicine and traditional Chinese medicine has been proposed, in which Shen Zhu San (SZS) was regarded as one of the basic prescriptions. METHODS: Network pharmacological approaches along with candidate compound screening, target prediction, target tissue location, protein-protein interaction network, gene ontology (GO), KEGG enrichment analyses, and gene microarray analyses were applied. RESULTS: A total of 627 targets of the 116 active ingredients of SZS were identified. Targets in immune cells and tissues were much more abundant than those in other tissues. A total of 597 targets were enriched in the GO biological cellular process, while 153 signaling pathways were enriched according to the KEGG analysis. A total of 450 SARS-related targets were integrated and intersected with the targets of SZS to identify 40 common targets that were significantly enriched in five immune function aspects of the immune system process during GO analysis. Several inflammation-related pathways were found to be significantly enriched throughout the study. CONCLUSIONS: The therapeutic mechanisms of the effects of SZS on COVID-19 potentially involve four effects: suppressing cytokine storms, protecting the pulmonary alveolar-capillary barrier, regulating the immune response, and mediating cell death and survival.

The effect of expected financial performance on corporate environmental responsibility disclosure: evidence from China.

Nowadays, firms spend a great deal of effort on Corporate Environmental Responsibility (CER) disclosure. From prospect theory, firms might disclose more CER information when they fail to achieve expected financial performance of the organization. We have constructed a CER disclosure index based on the "Guidelines for Environmental Information Disclosure of Listed Companies" issued by the Ministry of Environmental Protection of China in 2010. Using content analysis, we analyze 397 Chinese manufacturing Shanghai A-share listed firms from 2011 to 2017 (2090 firm-year observations) to investigate the relationship between corporate expected financial performance and CER disclosure. Our results show that, firstly, when the firm does not achieve the expected performance that is when the actual expectation is lower than the expected performance of the organization, the disclosure of corporate environmental responsibility increases; secondly, we have explored the moderating effect of industry categories; we have found that when firms fail to achieve the expected performance of the organization, light polluting firms are more inclined towards disclosing the environmental responsibility information than heavy polluting firms. Additionally, we have also studied the behavior of corporate environmental responsibility disclosure in the case of analysts expecting performance as a point of reference and got the same results.