Abstract
The present study determines the potential antioxidants in Moutan Cortex (MC) and predicts its targets of anti-oxidative activities. The quantitative analysis and the free radical scavenging assays were conducted to detect the main components in MC and assess its anti-oxidant activities. The grey relational analysis and the network pharmacology approach were employed to predict its key components and targets of anti-oxidant activities. Six main constitutes in MCs were quantified by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and its anti-oxidant activities were evaluated by DPPH and ABTS free radical scavenging methods. Then grey relational analysis was employed to predict the key components acting on anti-oxidative activity based on the chem-bio results. The predicted components and its mechanisms on anti-oxidation were uncovered by network pharmacology approach and cell test, respectively. The content of paeonol and paeoniflorin accounts for more than 80% the whole content of detected components. However, the two main ingredients showed a great variety among MCs. The antioxidant capacities of MCs also showed a great discrepancy based on DPPH and ABTS methods. The key components acting on anti-oxidation were identified to be paeonol, gallic acid and benzoylpaeoniflorin, and their potential therapeutic targets were predicted and verified, respectively. The present results reveal that MC has a significant antioxidant activity and the compounds of paeonol, gallic acid and benzoylpaeoniflorin could be considered as the promising antioxidant candidates with the property of suppressing oxidative stress and apoptosis.
Highlights
Free radicals play an important role in maintaining homeostasis at the cellular level in the normal healthy tissues
We found paeonol, paeoniflorin, benzoylpaeoniflorin, paeonolide, gallic acid and oxypaeoniflorin (Supplementary Figure S1) which were the predominant components in Moutan Cortex (MC), and the quantitative analytical method with simultaneously quantifying the six ingredients in MC was established (Ge et al, 2019)
The results from gene expression assay demonstrated that these ingredients could lead to the most significant decrease in the expression of the Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF), ALB, VEGFA and Caspase3 genes (Figure 8). This result is in accordance with the reduction of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) in RAW264.7 cells. These findings prove that the three bioactive compounds from MC could significantly prevent t-BHP-induced intracellular ROS generation in macrophages and protect the cells from apoptosis induced by oxidative stress (p < 0.001)
Summary
Free radicals play an important role in maintaining homeostasis at the cellular level in the normal healthy tissues. More and more evidence reveals that the oxidative stress caused by ROS participates in the development of aging, cancer (Kudryavtseva et al, 2016), neurodegenerative diseases (Chauhan et al, 2006), cardiovascular and metabolic diseases (Incalza et al, 2017), and psychiatric disorders (Newton et al, 2015). Antioxidants from nature such as vitamins, flavonoids and phenolic acid can effectively counter oxidative stress by scavenging free radicals (Halliwell et al, 1992). The medicinal plants with potent anti-oxidative activity play an important role in prevention and treatment of diseases related to oxidative stress
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