Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Comparative studies of the anti-thrombotic effects of saffron and HongHua based on network pharmacology

Jinyan Jiang¹, Susu Lin¹, Qiaoqiao Li¹, Shanshan Jiang¹, Yingjie Hu¹, Ling Liu¹, Yu Jiang¹, Shuting Chen¹, Yingpeng Tong*², Ping Wang¹

¹College of Pharmaceutical Science, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, 310014; ²Institute of Natural Medicine and Health Product, School of Advanced Study, Taizhou University, Taizhou, China, 318000.

For correspondence:- Ping Wang Email: wangping45@zjut.edu.cn Tel:+8613634108877

Accepted: 3 July 2020 Published: 31 July 2020

Citation: Jiang J, Lin S, Li Q, Jiang S, Hu Y, Liu L, et al. Comparative studies of the anti-thrombotic effects of saffron and HongHua based on network pharmacology. Trop J Pharm Res 2020; 19(7):1441-1448 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v19i7.16

© 2020 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the comparative anti-thrombotic effects of saffron and Honghua, and also to explore possible mechanisms in thrombosis based on network pharmacology.

Methods: A network pharmacology model was used for bioactive components, targets and pathways for saffron and HongHua via Traditional Chinese Medicine Systems Pharmacology Database and Analysis Platform (TCMSP), PharmMapper, Genecard, Uniprot and KEGG databases. In animal experiments, 72 rats were randomly divided into 9 groups: normal control group (NC), model control group (MC), crocetin groups (80, 40, 20 mg/kg), hydroxysafflor yellow A(HSYA) groups (80, 40, 20 mg/kg), and aspirin group (40 mg/kg). Using in vitro thrombosis models and an acute blood stasis model in vivo, the anti-thrombotic effects of these treatments on clotting time, hemorheology parameters, Thromboxane B2 (TXB2), plasmin activator inhibitor (PAI), protein C (PC), protein S (PS), and thrombin-antithrombin complex (TAT) were determined and comparisons made for saffron and HongHua.

Results: Five potential compounds, 16 anti-thrombotic targets and 27 pathways were predicted for saffron, while 22 compounds, 37 disease targets and 35 pathways were found for HongHua (p < 0.05). Pharmacological experiments revealed that crocetin and HSYA had significant effects on thrombus length, thrombus wet/dry mass, whole blood viscosity (WBV), erythrocyte aggregation index (EAI), clotting time and D-dimer for the high and middle groups. Unlike HSYA, crocetin also had significant and dose-dependent effects on PAI, prothrombin fragment 1+2 (F1+2) and PS and had highly significant effects on TXB2 and TAT.

Conclusion: This research provides a systematic, comprehensive and comparative analysis of component, target and anti-thrombotic pathways of saffron and HongHua based on network pharmacology, and also shows that saffron has more significant anti-thrombotic effect than HongHua.

Keywords: Saffron; HongHua; Network pharmacology; Anti-thrombosis; Network model