Network pharmacology-based anti-colorectal cancer activity of piperlonguminine in the ethanolic root extract of Piper longum L.

Abstract

Abstract The most frequent cancer to affect the human colon is colorectal cancer (CRC). CRC has the second highest incidence and fatality rates of any malignancy, at 10.2 and 9.2 percent, respectively. Plants and plants-based products for thousands of years, have been utilized to treat cancer along with other associated health issues. Alkaloids are a valuable class of chemical compounds with great potential as new medicine possibilities. Many of the alkaloids tested from different types of medicinal plants and herbs were found to impede proliferation of cells and kill many types of cancer cells. Piper longum Linn contains various types of alkaloids. In this research, the ethanolic root extract of Piper longum (EREPL) is the subject of study based on network pharmacology. Two alkaloids were picked from the gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis. However, only piperlonguminine received preference because it adhered to Lipinski's rule and depicted no toxicity. Web tools which are available online, like, Swiss ADME, pkCSMand ProTox-II were used to evaluate the pharmacokinetics and physiochemical properties of piperlonguminine. The database that SwissTargetPrediction and TCMSP maintain contains the targets for piperlonguminine. Using DisGeNET, GeneCards and Open Targets Platform databases, we were able to identify targets of CRC. The top four hub genes identified by Cytoscape are SRC, MTOR, EZH2, and MAPK3.The participation of hub genes in colorectal cancer-related pathways was examined using the Kyoto Encyclopaedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) database. The colorectal cancer pathway, the ErbB signaling pathway and the mTOR signaling pathway emerged to be important. Our findings show that the hub genes are involved in the aforementioned pathways for tumor growth, which calls for their downregulation. Additionally, piperlonguminine has the potential to become a successful medicine in the future for the treatment of CRC.