Study on the Efficacy of Zang Bi Formula in Treatment Rheumatoid Arthritis and its Cardiac Hypertrophy Complications in TNF-Tg Mice Based on Network Pharmacology
Objective The efficacy of Zang Bi Formula(ZBF)in cardiac complications of rheumatoid arthritis(RA)was observed through animal experiments.Ultra-high performance liquid chromatography tandem time-of-flight mass spectrometry(UHPLC-TOF-MS)and network pharmacology was used to analyze the active ingredients,targets,and pathways of ZBF for the treatment of cardiac hypertrophy,and molecular docking was applied to verify the binding ability of the ingredients to pathway-related proteins.Methods TNF transgenic(TNF-Tg)mice were used as RA and RA-complexed cardiac hypertrophy models,and the left ventricular hypertrophy of mice was observed by echocardiography after 8 weeks of continuous gavage with ZBF,and WGA staining,HE staining,and Masson staining were used to observe and analyze the pathological changes of cardiac tissues.The chemical composition of ZBF was identified by UHPLC-TOF-MS technique.The public database was then used to screen the active ingredients and component targets and disease targets,construct interaction networks,and analyze the bioconcentration data as well as the docking ability of the active ingredients and proteins.Results In animal experiments,ZBF reduced cardiac weight index and cardiac weight tibia length ratio in TNF-Tg mice(P<0.05,P<0.01),attenuated cardiac hypertrophy(P<0.001)and cardiomyocyte hypertrophy(P<0.01),and alleviated inflammatory infiltration and fibrosis in the heart(P<0.0001).A total of 24 compounds were identified from ZBF by UHPLC-TOF-MS.A total of 105 active ingredients of ZBF were screened by network pharmacological analysis,and 187 potential targets of ZBF for cardiac hypertrophy were constructed,and the enriched pathways with significance included PI3K-AKT signaling pathway,TNF signaling pathway,and MAPK signaling pathway.Conclusion ZBF attenuated myocardial hypertrophy and cardiomyocyte hypertrophy in TNF-Tg mice and alleviated inflammatory infiltration and fibrosis in the heart,and ZBF may be a potential drug for the treatment of RA and its cardiac complications in the clinic.
Rheumatoid arthritis cardiac complicationsCardiac hypertrophyZang Bi Formula(ZBF)TNF transgenic(TNF-Tg)mice