Combined Metabolite Analysis and Network Pharmacology to Elucidate the Mechanisms of Therapeutic Effect of Melastoma dodecandrum Ellagitannins on Abnormal Uterine Bleeding

Abstract

The abnormal uterine bleeding (AUB) is complex and usually leads to severe anemia. Melastomadodecandrum (MD) is clinically used for the treatment of metrorrhagia bleeding. The MD ellagitannins (MD‐ETs) had been evidenced being effective at hemorrhage, and exerts biological activities upon their metabolites including ellagic acid and urolithins. In this study, the blood‐permeated metabolites from theMD‐ETs were analyzed using LC‐MS approach, and 19 metabolites including ellagic acid and urolithin A derivatives were identified. Furthermore, a network pharmacology analysis including the target prediction analysis, AUB target analysis, Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analysis were conducted to reveal the relationships between “metabolites‐targets‐pathways”, which was further verified by molecular docking analysis. The results showed that methyl ellagic acid, urolithin A and isourolithin A produced from MD‐ETs can be absorbed into the blood, and might act on the core targets of VEGFA, SRC, MTOR, EGFR and CCND1. And the hemostatic effects were exerted through PI3K‐Akt, endocrine resistance and Rap 1 signaling pathways. These results implied the potential effective constituents and action mechanism of MD‐ETs in the therapy of AUB, which will promote the application of MD‐ETs as natural agent for the treatment of gynecological bleeding diseases.

Inhibitory Effects of Urolithins, Bioactive Gut Metabolites from Natural Polyphenols, against Glioblastoma Progression

“…We previously demonstrated that TNF-α-induced EGFR activation is important for modulating the TME of GBM [40]. Recently, a network pharmacology analysis suggested that urolithins may act on the EGFR and Akt signaling for anti-abnormal uterine bleeding effect [73]. The present study corroborated that urolithins reduce the TME and inhibit tumor progression in GBM cells by regulating Akt and EGFR signaling pathways (Figure 8).…”