Evaluating the therapeutic effect of Moutan Cortex-Gardeniae Fructus-Coptidis Rhizoma on C57BL/6 mice with diabetic cardiomyopathy based on HPLC-network pharmacology and in vivo animal experiments.

DCM is a serious complication of diabetes that eventually develops into heart failure and damages the health of human. Here, we study the therapeutic effect of MC-GF-CR on C57BL/6 mice with DCM. First, the aqueous extract powder of MC-GF-CR was characterized by HPLC for compositional analysis. Afterword, the network pharmacology method was adopted to gain the TCM-DCM network, PPI network, key targets, GO and KEGG enrichment analysis results. Meanwhile, we constructed the DCM mouse model by feeding high-sugar and high-fat fodder and injecting STZ to evaluate the therapeutic effect of MC-GF-CR on DCM and validate the potential targets. Thirteen chemicals were detected from the MC-GF-CR extracts by HPLC. 186 intersecting targets were screened between TCM and disease, including 31 core targets. The GO and KEGG analysis results suggested that MC-GF-CR can regulate DCM from various signaling pathways. The in vivo animal experiments exhibited that MC-GF-CR could improve the levels of body weight, blood glucose, blood lipids, serum insulin, cardiac function, and the expression of relative proteins in the model mice. Molecular docking results showed that IL-6-paeoniflorin and -quercetin, MAPK1-quercetin, and PRKCA-quercetin all exhibited a better binding ability. Our study reported that MC-GF-CR exhibited therapeutic effect on DCM through regulating the expression of IL-6, MAPK1, and PRKCA.