Deciphering the Mechanical Network of Chronic Atrophic Gastritis: A Urinary Time-Dependent Metabonomics-Based Network Pharmacology Study

Research on drug treatment and the novel signaling pathway of chronic atrophic gastritis

BACKGROUND

Chronic atrophic gastritis (CAG) is a global digestive system disease and one of the important causes of gastric cancer. The incidence of CAG has been increasing yearly worldwide.

PURPOSE

This article reviews the latest research on the common causes and future therapeutic targets of CAG as well as the pharmacological effects of corresponding clinical drugs. We provide a detailed theoretical basis for further research on possible methods for the treatment of CAG and reversal of the CAG process.

RESULTS

CAG often develops from chronic gastritis, and its main pathological manifestation is atrophy of the gastric mucosa, which can develop into gastric cancer. The drug treatment of CAG can be divided into agents that regulate gastric acid secretion, eradicate Helicobacter. pylori (H. pylori), protect gastric mucous membrane, or inhibit inflammatory factors according to their mechanism of action. Although there are limited specific drugs for the treatment of CAG, progress is being made in defining the pathogenesis and therapeutic targets of the disease. Growing evidence shows that NF-κB, PI3K/AKT, Wnt/ β-catenin, MAPK, Toll-like receptors (TLRs), Hedgehog, and VEGF signaling pathways play an important role in the development of CAG.

Optimization of protein removal process of Lonicera japonica polysaccharide and its immunomodulatory mechanism in cyclophosphamide-induced mice by metabolomics and network pharmacology

In this study, TCA-n-butanol was chosen as the best deproteinization method for Lonicera japonica polysaccharide (LJP) by comparing the polysaccharide retention rate and the protein clearance rate of five different methods. The response surface methodology (RSM) based on the Box-Behnken design (BBD) was used to optimize the deproteinization conditions as follows: TCA: n-butanol = 1: 5.1, polysaccharide solution: (TCA-n-butanol) = 1: 2.8, and shook for 33 min. LJP could promote the thymus and spleen indexes of cyclophosphamide (CTX)-induced immune-deficient mice. Besides, the contents of cytokine interleukin-2 (IL-2) and hemolysin in mice serum were augmented after treatment with LJP. Based on serum metabolomics analysis, a total of 14 metabolites (VIP >1.0, FC >2 or FC <0.5, and p value < .05) were selected as the potential biological biomarkers related to the LJP for treating CTX-induced mice. After the pathway enrichment analysis, these metabolites were mainly involved in the relevant pathways of arginine biosynthesis, Citrate cycle, and other metabolic pathways. Network pharmacology further showed that there were 57 key targeting proteins in the intersection of the potential biological biomarkers and immunodeficiency-related targeting proteins according to protein-protein interactions analysis (PPI). The biological function analysis indicated that the potential biological processes were mainly associated with tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle, phospholipid metabolic process, metabolic process, and so on. In conclusion, serum metabolomics combined with network pharmacology could be helpful to clarify the immunomodulatory mechanism of LJP and provide a literature basis for further clinical research on the therapeutic mechanism of LJP.

Metabolite Characteristics in Tongue Coating from Damp Phlegm Pattern in Patients with Gastric Precancerous Lesion

Objective

In this study, we analyzed the metabolite profile of the tongue coating of patients having gastric precancerous lesion (GPL) with damp phlegm pattern and proposed a mechanism of pathological transition.

Methods

The changes in tongue-coating metabolites in patients with GPL damp phlegm pattern were analyzed using GC-TOF-MS and UHPLC-QE-MS metabolomics methods.

Results

When compared with 20 patients who did not exhibit a nondamp phlegm pattern, 12 metabolites were highly expressed and 10 metabolites were under expressed in 40 cases of damp phlegm pattern, of which involved 9 metabolic pathways. Compared with 15 healthy people, 134 metabolites were upregulated and 3 metabolites were downregulated in 40 cases exhibiting a damp phlegm pattern, of which involved 17 metabolic pathways. The patients with damp phlegm pattern were compared with nondamp phlegm pattern patients and healthy people, the main differential metabolites were primarily lipids and lipid-like molecules, and the main differential metabolic pathways were related to glycerophospholipid metabolism. In the glycerophospholipid metabolism, the metabolites with changes were phosphatidylethanolamine and lysoPC(18 : 1 (9z)). Among them, phosphatidylethanolamine exists in the synthesis stage of glycerophospholipid metabolism.

Conclusions

Abnormal expression of lipids and lipid-like molecules, as the major metabolic change, was involved in the formation of GPL patients with damp phlegm pattern.

Transcriptome Analysis of lncRNA-mRNA Interactions in Chronic Atrophic Gastritis

The aim of this study was to identify prognosis-related differentially expressed lncRNAs and mRNAs in chronic atrophic gastritis (CAG). By analysis of high-throughput whole-transcriptome sequencing data, the levels of lncRNAs and mRNAs between CAG and chronic non-atrophic gastritis were compared pairwisely. In total, 97,282 lncRNA transcripts and 20,307 mRNA transcripts were acquired, including 50 upregulated and 66 downregulated lncRNAs and 377 upregulated and 763 downregulated mRNAs in CAG (p < 0.05, fold change ≥ 2). Moreover, the interactions of the differentially expressed genes in CAG were investigated by gene ontology enrichment analysis, showing that the enriched genes are involved in many biological processes, such as MAP kinase activity, heat generation, and protein modification processes. Through the construction of co-expression networks of the differentially expressed genes in CAG, three critical lncRNAs nodes were identified as potential key factors in CAG. Eight mRNAs common in both the co-expression network and the protein-protein interaction network were selected via Venn analysis, including DGKA, EIF6, HKDC1, DHRS11, 1, KRT15, TESPA1, and CDHR2. Finally, the expression levels of five differentially expressed lncRNAs in CAG were confirmed by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. In conclusion, this study presents novel promising biomarkers for the diagnosis of CAG.

Mitochondria metabonomics of Huangqi Jianzhong Tang against chronic atrophic gastritis

Huangqi Jianzhong Tang (HQJZ) is a representative prescription used for clinical treatment of chronic atrophic gastritis (CAG) in Chinese medicine. Our previous study had revealed that energy regulation was one of the important mechanisms of HQJZ action against CAG. In this study, ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole-Exactive mass spectrometry (UHPLC-Q-Exactive MS) based metabonomics was used to find the potential mitochondrial biomarkers and metabolic pathways of HQJZ in CAG rats, which focused on a specific organelle (mitochondria) isolated from gastric tissue samples. A total of 16 biomarkers from CAG tissues were identified with 11 of these significantly regulated by HQJZ treatment. These biomarkers was mainly involved in glycine, serine, and threonine metabolism; aminoacyl-tRNA biosynthesis metabolism; and taurine and hypotaurine metabolism. Our results show that HQJZ could protect from CAG by altering the mitochondrial function. These findings deepen our understanding of the mitochondrial metabolic changes that occur with CAG and shine a light on the mechanism of HQJZ.