Hepatoprotective Mongolian prescription II enhances the antitumor effects of chemotherapeutics in hepatocellular carcinoma xenografts

Treatment of Liver Cancer: Role of the Traditional Mongolian Medicine

Liver cancer is an extraordinarily heterogeneous malignancy with relatively high mortality and increasing incidence rate among the so far identified cancers. Improvements in liver cancer therapy have been made in the past decades, but therapeutics against liver cancer are still limited. Traditional Mongolian Medicine, formed and developed by the Mongolian people to maintain health in the medical practice of fighting against diseases, has been recognized as one of the key components of the world healthcare system. Traditional Mongolian Medicine has been used to treat various malignancies, including liver cancer, for a long time in Asia and its advantages have become more and more apparent. Herein, this review made a comprehensive summary of Traditional Mongolian Medicine, including the ideas in the liver cancer treatment, sources of medicines or prescriptions, traditional applications, modern pharmacological research, chemical structure and mechanisms of several monomer compounds isolated from Traditional Mongolian Medicine, with a view to finding promising drugs against liver cancer and expanding the clinical application of Traditional Mongolian Medicine in liver cancer therapy.

Preliminary Study on the Mechanism of Carvacrol Regulating Hepatocellular Carcinoma Based on Network Pharmacology

Objective:

To predict and analyze the target of anti-Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC) in the active constituents of Safflower by using network pharmacology.

Methods:

The active compounds of safflower were collected by TCMSP, TCM-PTD database and literature mining methods. The targets of active compounds were predicted by Swiss Target Prediction server, and the target of anti-HCC drugs was collected by DisGeNET database. The target was subjected to an alignment analysis to screen out Carvacrol, a target of safflower against HCC. The mouse HCC model was established and treated with Carvacrol. The anti-HCC target DAPK1 and PPP2R2A were verified by Western blot and co-immunoprecipitation.

Results:

A total of 21 safflower active ingredients were predicted. Carvacrol was identified as a possible active ingredient according to the five principles of drug-like medicine. According to Carvacrol's possible targets and possible targets of HCC, three co-targets were identified, including cancer- related are DAPK1 and PPP2R2A. After 20 weeks of Carvacrol treated, Carvacrol group significantly increased on DAPK1 levels and decreased PPP2R2A levels in the model mice by Western blot. Immunoprecipitation confirmed the endogenous interaction between DAPK1 and PPP2R2A.

Conclusion:

Safflower can regulate the development of HCC through its active component Carvacrol, which can affect the expression of DAPK1 and PPP2R2A proteins, and the endogenous interactions of DAPK1 and PPP2R2A proteins.