Herbal medicine, a multi-component treatment, has been extensively practiced for treating various symptoms and diseases. However, its molecular mechanism of action on the human body is unknown, which impedes the development and application of herbal medicine. To address this, recent studies are increasingly adopting systems pharmacology, which interprets pharmacological effects of drugs from consequences of the interaction networks that drugs might have. Most conventional network-based approaches collect associations of herb-compound, compound-target, and target-disease from individual databases, respectively, and construct an integrated network of herb-compound-target-disease to study the complex mechanisms underlying herbal treatment. More recently, rapid advances in highthroughput omics technology have led numerous studies to exploring gene expression profiles induced by herbal treatments to elicit information on direct associations between herbs and genes at the genome-wide scale. In this review, we summarize key databases and computational methods utilized in systems pharmacology for studying herbal medicine. We also highlight recent studies that identify modes of action or novel indications of herbal medicine by harnessing drug-induced transcriptome data. [

Neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease (PD) are known to be related to oxidative stress and neuroinflammation, and thus, modulating neuroinflammation offers a possible means of treating PD-associated pathologies. Morin (2′,3,4′,5,7-pentahydroxy flavone) is a flavonol with anti-oxidative and anti-inflammatory effects found in wines, herbs, and fruits. The present study was undertaken to determine whether a morin-containing diet has protective effects in an MPTP-induced mouse model of PD. Mice were fed a control or morin diet for 34 days, and then MPTP (30 mg/kg, i.p.) was administered daily for 5 days to induce a PD-like pathology. We found that dietary morin prevented MPTP-induced motor dysfunction and ameliorated dopaminergic neuronal damage in striatum (STR) and substantia nigra (SN) in our mouse model. Furthermore, MPTP-induced neuroinflammation was significantly reduced in mice fed morin. In vitro studies showed that morin effectively suppressed glial activations in primary microglia and astrocytes, and biochemical analysis and a docking simulation indicated that the anti-inflammatory effects of morin were mediated by blocking the extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK)-p65 pathway. These findings suggest that morin effectively inhibits glial activations and has potential use as a functional food ingredient with therapeutic potential for the treatment of PD and other neurodegenerative diseases associated with neuroinflammation.

Cancer-associated cachexia (CAC) is a multifactorial syndrome characterized by loss of body weight and skeletal muscle mass that cannot be fully recovered by nutritional support. It accounts for approximately 20 % of cancer-related deaths. However, there are no approved treatments for CAC yet. In order to better understand CAC, we wanted to apply the multi-omics approaches to simultaneously assess tumors and skeletal muscles in CAC mouse models. First, we established a lung cancer cachexia mouse model by orthotopic transplantation of KRAS-mutant lung cancer cells. Lung tumor-bearing mice developed cachexia at 7 weeks post injection, showing over 20 % of body weight loss and wasting of skeletal muscles and fats. The histological and immunoblotting analyses revealed degradation of gastrocnemius (GA) and tibialis anterior (TA) muscles in CAC group. Then, we performed the bulk RNA sequencing to assess transcriptomic changes in lung tumors and GA muscles of CAC mice. In lung tumors, genes associated to ATP metabolic process was upregulated. However, skeletal muscles of CAC mice showed upregulation of genes involved in protein degradation and immune responses, while genes related to energy metabolism were downregulated. Notably, the immunohistochemical staining revealed the increased numbers of infiltrating macrophages and CD8+ T cells in skeletal muscles of CAC mice. These data suggest the involvement of immune cells in lung cancer-associated cachexia. To further identify the distinct immune cell populations involved in CAC, the single cell RNA sequencing was conducted using CD45+ immune cells infiltrated into GA muscles of CAC mice. The enrichment of natural killer cells, dendritic cells and T cells was detected in GA of CAC mice. Moreover, we confirmed the roles of the infiltrating immune cells by using the neutralizing antibodies in CAC mice. Taken together, these data suggest the involvement of the immune cells in the skeletal muscle wasting of CAC mice. These multi-omics approaches will shed light on development of therapeutics for cancer-induced cachexia. Citation Format: Se-Young Park, Bomi Kim, Myunggyo Lee, Haeseung Lee, Na-Young Song. Multi-omics approaches revealed the involvement of immune cells in skeletal muscles of lung cancer cachexia mouse model [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2023; Part 1 (Regular and Invited Abstracts); 2023 Apr 14-19; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2023;83(7_Suppl):Abstract nr 364.