Background::Chronic bronchitis is a type of common chronic inflammatory respiratory
disease, which is mainly characterized by chronic cough and expectoration. Clinical practice
and experimental research have shown that the modified tonifying spleen-lung method has significant
preventive and therapeutic effects on chronic lung diseases, but the mechanism of TSLR
in the treatment of chronic bronchitis are not yet clear.
background::Chronic bronchitis is a type of common chronic inflammatory respiratory disease, which is mainly characterized by chronic cough and expectoration. Clinical practice and experimental research have shown that modified tonifying spleen-lung method has significant preventive and therapeutic effects on chronic lung diseases, but the mechanism of TSLR in the treatment of chronic bronchitis are not yet clear.
Objective::To explore the mechanism of tonifying spleen-lung recipe (TSLR) in the treatment of
chronic bronchitis (CB) through network pharmacology combined with observational studies.
Materials and Methods::The effective components, core targets and signaling pathways of
TSLR in the treatment of chronic bronchitis were obtained using network pharmacology. One
hundred and thirty-seven elderly CB patients were selected as the observational group who were
treated by TSLR, and 67 no-CB cases from the Physical Examination Center were selected as the
control group. We compared the levels of inflammatory parameters between patients before and
after TSLR treatment, and after treatment group with the control group were also compared.
Results::The key effective components of TSLR selected by network pharmacology included
quercetin, kaempferol, luteolin, and nobiletin, and the core targets involved HSP90AA1, AKT1,
JUN, MAPK1, IL6, MAPK3, MAPK14, STAT1, NFKB1, and CDKN1. KEGG pathway enrichment
analysis revealed that the TNF signaling pathway, PI3K-AKT and AGE-RAGE signaling
pathways might play a key role in the treatment of CB. The observation study demonstrated
that compared with the control group, the levels of WBC, NEU, NLR, PCT, and CRP in the research
group after TSLR treatment were increased. Although the levels of WBC, NEU, NLR,
and PCT in the research group after TSLR treatment were higher than those in the control group,
the above indicators trend tended towards the control group, and there was no significant difference
in CRP indicators between the control group and after treatment group.
Conclusion::TSLR had a good therapeutic effect on chronic bronchitis patients, which might be
related to the fact that the natural active components in TSLR inhibit inflammation by regulating
the expression of proteins related to PI3K-AKT and TNF signaling pathways.
other::This study identified TSLR as an effective treatment for CB via regulating inflammation. And it provided a reference for further research on the mechanism of TSLR in CB treatment.