Selecting herbs for psoriasis based on clinical, experimental and in-silico evidence

摘要

Purpose: This project aimed to select promising herbs fortreating psoriasis vulgaris based on the results of clinical,experimental and in-silico studies and to explore the possibleactions ofmultiple compounds onmultiple targets relevant tothis disease.Methods: Meta-analysis of clinical trials combined withreviews of experimental studies were used to short-list herbsthat showed promise of efficacy for psoriasis vulgaris as wellas have anti-proliferative and/or anti-inflammatory actions.Databases were used to identify the compounds contained inthe herbs, the protein targets of these compounds and themetabolic pathways in which the proteins are involved.Results: The clinical and experimental studies identified12 herbs that showed evidence of efficacy in clinical trials andevidence of activity in experimental studies. These herbs contained60+ compounds which have been reported to act on350+ proteins. Of these, multiple proteins were involved inapoptosis, inflammation and angiogenesis. Proteins of knownrelevance to psoriasis included Tumor Necrosis Factor andCyclooxygenase whichwere down-regulated bymultiple compoundsin the herbs. Proteins relevant to apoptosis that wereregulated by multiple compounds included Apoptosis regulatorBcl-2, Apoptosis regulator BAX, Caspase-3 and Caspase-9.Multiple compounds were identified as inhibiting angiogenesisvia Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor.Within some singleherbs,multiple compounds appeared to be acting onmultipleproteins within a pathway suggesting that its clinical actionsmay be based on multi-compound multi-target effects.Conclusion: This approach links the results of systematicreviews and meta-analyses of clinical studies to the resultsof experimental research by focusing on how compoundscontained in herbs could be acting on multiple proteins toaffect the inflammatory and proliferative processes involvedin psoriasis. The results indicate that multiple herbs containcompounds that regulate known psoriasis targets as well asother proteins that may be involved in the development andor maintenance of psoriasis lesions.