Department of Diagnostic, College of Korean Medicine, Dongguk University, Goyang, Republic of Korea.
Institute of Korean Medicine, Dongguk University, Goyang, Republic of Korea.
PLoS One. 2023 Mar 16;18(3):e0282875. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0282875. eCollection 2023.
Herbal combinations are regarded as basic strategy in oriental medicine with various purposes. Ephedrae herba (EH) and Coicis semen (CS) are two herbal medicines used to treat obesity in many herbal prescriptions, yet the effect and significance of this herbal pair have not been evaluated.
This study is to elucidate the effect of a novel herbal pair, EH-CS, on obesity and identify the key synergistic mechanism underlying it.
We investigated the network of herbs comprising the anti-obesity herbal prescriptions. Using the tools of network pharmacology, we investigated the compound-target interactions of EH and CS in combination to predict their effects in combination. Five EH-CS samples with different EH to CS ratios were prepared to investigate their efficacies in adipocytes.
1-mode network analysis of herbs in prescriptions based on literature review revealed the importance of EH-CS in anti-obesity prescriptions. The herbal combination comprised of equivalent weights (1:1) of EH and CS most potently reduced mature adipocyte adiposity, although several markers of adipogenesis and lipid synthesis were more suppressed by pure EH. PTGS2 (COX-2 gene) expression, a common target of EH and CS as deduced by compound-target network analysis, was affected by EH-CS extract treatments. However, EH at high concentration (25 μg/ml) notably increased PTGS2 expression without adversely affecting cell viability. However, EH-CS combination of the same concentration markedly decreased PTGS2 gene expression.
These results show that the compounds in CS and EH act in concert to enhance the pharmacological effect of EH, but control unexpected effects of EH treatment.
草药组合被认为是东方医学的基本策略，具有多种用途。麻黄和薏苡仁是两种用于治疗肥胖症的草药，在许多草药方剂中都有使用，但这种草药组合的效果和意义尚未得到评估。
本研究旨在阐明新型草药组合麻黄-薏苡仁（EH-CS）对肥胖的作用，并确定其关键协同作用机制。
我们研究了包含抗肥胖草药方剂的草药网络。利用网络药理学工具，研究了 EH 和 CS 联合使用的化合物-靶标相互作用，以预测它们联合使用的效果。制备了 5 种不同 EH 与 CS 比例的 EH-CS 样品，以研究它们在脂肪细胞中的功效。
基于文献回顾的方剂中草药 1 模式网络分析揭示了 EH-CS 在抗肥胖方剂中的重要性。由等量（1:1）的 EH 和 CS 组成的草药组合最有效地减少成熟脂肪细胞的脂肪含量，尽管几个脂肪生成和脂质合成的标志物被纯 EH 更强烈地抑制。化合物-靶标网络分析推断出 EH 和 CS 的共同靶标 PTGS2（COX-2 基因）表达受到 EH-CS 提取物处理的影响。然而，高浓度（25 μg/ml）的 EH 显著增加了 PTGS2 表达，而不会对细胞活力产生不利影响。然而，相同浓度的 EH-CS 组合则显著降低了 PTGS2 基因表达。
这些结果表明，CS 和 EH 中的化合物协同作用，增强了 EH 的药理作用，但控制了 EH 治疗的意外作用。
