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Pharmaceuticals
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Network Pharmacology of Natural Products
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Network Pharmacology of Natural Products

A special issue of Pharmaceuticals (ISSN 1424-8247). This special issue belongs to the section "Natural Products".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 25 June 2024 | Viewed by 5559

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Alexander George Panossian

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Phytomed AB, 58344 Vastervick, Sweden
Interests: network pharmacology; neuroendocrine-immune system; stress; ageing; infalmmation; adaptogens
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue is aimed to highlight recent findings on the relationship between natural products (purified compounds, plant extracts, herbal medicines, complex formulations) and pharmacological activity, including specific and pleiotropic action. 

We encourage authors to submit a wide range of studies, including molecular mechanisms of multitarget action based on network pharmacology approach and clinical trials.

Prof. Dr. Alexander George Panossian
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Pharmaceuticals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • natural compounds
  • plant extracts
  • structure-activity relationship
  • network pharmacology
  • multitarget effects
  • synergy of complex preparations
  • pleiotropic activity

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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20 pages, 5214 KiB  
Article
Efficacy of Kan Jang® in Patients with Mild COVID-19: A Randomized, Quadruple-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial
by Levan Ratiani, Elene Pachkoria, Nato Mamageishvili, Ramaz Shengelia, Areg Hovhannisyan and Alexander Panossian
Pharmaceuticals 2023, 16(9), 1196; https://doi.org/10.3390/ph16091196 - 22 Aug 2023
Viewed by 1352
Abstract
Background and aim. This study aimed to assess the efficacy of the treatment of Kan Jang®, a fixed combination of Andrographis paniculata (Burm. F.) Wall. ex. Nees and Eleutherococcus senticosus (Rupr. & Maxim.) Maxim extracts in patients with mild symptoms [...] Read more.
Background and aim. This study aimed to assess the efficacy of the treatment of Kan Jang®, a fixed combination of Andrographis paniculata (Burm. F.) Wall. ex. Nees and Eleutherococcus senticosus (Rupr. & Maxim.) Maxim extracts in patients with mild symptoms of COVID-19. Methods. One hundred and forty patients received six capsules of Kan Jang® (n = 68, daily dose of andrographolides—90 mg) or placebo (n = 72) and supportive treatment (paracetamol) for 14 consecutive days in a randomized, quadruple-blinded, placebo-controlled, two-parallel-group design. The efficacy outcomes were the rate of cases turning to severe, the detection rate of coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 over the time of treatment, the duration, and the severity of symptoms (sore throat, runny nose, cough, headache, fatigue, loss of smell, taste, pain in muscles) in the acute phase of the disease. Other efficacy measures included improving cognitive and physical performance, quality of life, and the levels of inflammatory blood markers—interleukin 6 (IL-6), C-reactive protein, and D-dimer. Results. Kan Jang® significantly (p < 0.05) reduced the rate of cases turning to severe (5.36%) compared to the placebo (17.86%) and decreased the detection rate of SARS-CoV-2 virus over the time of the treatment. The statistical difference in the rates of patients with clinical deterioration in the Kan Jang treatment and placebo control groups was significant (p = 0.0176) both in the 112 patients in the included-per-protocol (IPP) analysis and in the 140 patients in the intended-to-treat (ITT) analysis (p = 0.0236); the absolute risk reduction in cases thanks to the Kan Jang treatment was 12.5%, and the number we needed to treat with Kan Jang was 8. The patient’s recovery time (number of sick days at the home/clinic) was shorter in the Kan Jang group compared with the placebo group. The rate of attenuation of inflammatory symptoms in the Kan Jang® group was significantly higher, decreasing the severity of cough, sore throat/pain, runny nose, and muscle soreness compared with the placebo group. Kan Jang® significantly decreased the Wisconsin Upper Respiratory Symptoms scores compared to the placebo in the sample size of 140 patients. However, the relief of fatigue and headache and the decrease in IL-6 in the blood were observed only in a subset of 86 patients infected during the second three waves of the pandemic. Kan Jang® significantly increased physical activity and workout; however, it did not affect cognitive functions (attention and memory), quality of life score, inflammatory marker D-dimer, and C-reactive protein compared with the placebo group. Conclusions. Overall, the results of this study suggest that Kan Jang® is effective in treating mild and moderate COVID-19 irrespective of the SARS-CoV-2 variant of infection. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Network Pharmacology of Natural Products)
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Review

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27 pages, 5792 KiB  
Review
State-of-the-Art Review on Botanical Hybrid Preparations in Phytomedicine and Phytotherapy Research: Background and Perspectives
by Alexander Panossian, Terry Lemerond and Thomas Efferth
Pharmaceuticals 2024, 17(4), 483; https://doi.org/10.3390/ph17040483 - 10 Apr 2024
Viewed by 812
Abstract
Background: Despite some evidence supporting the synergy concept, the commonly known assumption that combinations of several herbs in one formulation can have better efficacy due to additive or synergistic effects has yet to be unambiguously and explicitly studied. Study aim: The study aimed [...] Read more.
Background: Despite some evidence supporting the synergy concept, the commonly known assumption that combinations of several herbs in one formulation can have better efficacy due to additive or synergistic effects has yet to be unambiguously and explicitly studied. Study aim: The study aimed to reveal the molecular interactions in situ of host cells in response to botanical hybrid preparations (BHP) intervention and justify the benefits of implementing BHP in clinical practice. Results: This prospective literature review provides the results of recent clinical and network pharmacology studies of BHP of Rhodiola rosea L. (Arctic root) with other plants, including Withania somnifera (L.) Dunal (ashwagandha), (Camellia sinensis (L.) Kuntze (green tea), Eleutherococcus senticosus (Rupr. and Maxim.) Maxim. (eleuthero), Schisandra chinensis (Turcz.) Baill. (schisandra), Leuzea carthamoides (Willd.) DC., caffeine, Cordyceps militaris L., Ginkgo biloba L.(ginkgo), Actaea racemosa L. (black cohosh), Crocus sativus L. (saffron), and L-carnosine. Conclusions: The most important finding from network pharmacology studies of BHP was the evidence supporting the synergistic interaction of BHP ingredients, revealing unexpected new pharmacological activities unique and specific to the new BHP. Some studies show the superior efficacy of BHP compared to mono-drugs. At the same time, some a priori-designed combinations can fail, presumably due to antagonistic interactions and crosstalk between molecular targets within the molecular networks involved in the cellular and overall response of organisms to the intervention. Network pharmacology studies help predict the results of studies aimed at discovering new indications and unpredicted adverse events. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Network Pharmacology of Natural Products)
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Other

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81 pages, 15918 KiB  
Systematic Review
Efficacy and Key Materials of East Asian Herbal Medicine Combined with Conventional Medicine on Inflammatory Skin Lesion in Patients with Psoriasis Vulgaris: A Meta-Analysis, Integrated Data Mining, and Network Pharmacology
by Hee-Geun Jo, Hyehwa Kim, Eunhye Baek, Donghun Lee and Ji Hye Hwang
Pharmaceuticals 2023, 16(8), 1160; https://doi.org/10.3390/ph16081160 - 15 Aug 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2329
Abstract
Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory disease that places a great burden on both individuals and society. The use of East Asian herbal medicine (EAHM) in combination with conventional medications is emerging as an effective strategy to control the complex immune-mediated inflammation of this [...] Read more.
Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory disease that places a great burden on both individuals and society. The use of East Asian herbal medicine (EAHM) in combination with conventional medications is emerging as an effective strategy to control the complex immune-mediated inflammation of this disease from an integrative medicine (IM) perspective. The safety and efficacy of IM compared to conventional medicine (CM) were evaluated by collecting randomized controlled trial literature from ten multinational research databases. We then searched for important key materials based on integrated drug data mining. Network pharmacology analysis was performed to predict the mechanism of the anti-inflammatory effect. Data from 126 randomized clinical trials involving 11,139 patients were used. Compared with CM, IM using EAHM showed significant improvement in the Psoriasis Area Severity Index (PASI) 60 (RR: 1.4280; 95% CI: 1.3783–1.4794; p < 0.0001), PASI score (MD: −3.3544; 95% CI: −3.7608 to −2.9481; p < 0.0001), inflammatory skin lesion outcome, quality of life, serum inflammatory indicators, and safety index of psoriasis. Through integrated data mining of intervention data, we identified four herbs that were considered to be representative of the overall clinical effects of IM: Rehmannia glutinosa (Gaertn.) DC., Isatis tinctoria subsp. athoa (Boiss.) Papan., Paeonia × suffruticosa Andrews, and Scrophularia ningpoensis Hemsl. They were found to have mechanisms to inhibit pathological keratinocyte proliferation and immune-mediated inflammation, which are major pathologies of psoriasis, through multiple pharmacological actions on 19 gene targets and 8 pathways in network pharmacology analysis. However, the quality of the clinical trial design and pharmaceutical quality control data included in this study is still not optimal; therefore, more high-quality clinical and non-clinical studies are needed to firmly validate the information explored in this study. This study is informative in that it presents a focused hypothesis and methodology for the value and direction of such follow-up studies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Network Pharmacology of Natural Products)
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Planned Papers

The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.

Title: An Assessment of Antidepressant Like Potentiality of Phyllanthus emblica on Experimental Rodent Model of Depressive Disorder Under the Light of Numerous Behavioural Test Batteries
Author: Aktar
Highlights: Assessed psychological state of (test batteries) Stress given. Employing test batteries, severity of depression measured, Extract induced Using test batteries, severity of depression measured again. Extract effectively reverse the disturbed pathological state, severe to less severe or fully reversed. Such three-layered analysis has never been done in the same research previously.

Title: Network pharmacology combined with molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulation to investigate the mechanism of Kelisha capsule ameliorated E. coli-induced diarrhea
Author: Shi
Highlights: 1. Network pharmacology revealed that KLSC alleviates diarrhea through multiple components, multiple targets, and various pathways. 2. Molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulation confirmed the stable interaction between the key components and the core targets. 3. KLSC could regulate multiple inflammation-related signaling pathways. 4. Experimental results demonstrated that KLSC relieved diarrhea-related symptoms and reduced the levels of inflammatory cytokines.

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