Study on the mechanism of anti-acute lung injury of Shuanghuanglian oral liquid based on identification of transitional components in blood and network pharmacology

Acute lung injury (ALI) is a common clinical disease that seriously affects people's health and endangers their lives. Shuanghuanglian (SHL) oral liquid is a well-known traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) preparation that is often used clinically to treat respiratory infections. SHL oral liquid has good efficacy, but its mechanism is still unclear. A strategy combining the identification of transitional components in blood and network pharmacology was proposed and applied to explore the potential anti-ALI mechanism of SHL oral liquid. A UHPLC-Q-Exactive Orbitrap-MS method was first developed to characterize the metabolic profiling of rat serum after gavage administration of SHL oral liquid. Then, based on the identified compounds, network pharmacology was used to establish a component-target-pathway network to explore the molecular mechanism of SHL oral liquid in the treatment of ALI. As a result, 92 transitional components in blood after oral administration of SHL oral liquid were identified, including 28 prototype components and 64 metabolites, and the metabolic pathways were also estimated and analyzed. Based on network pharmacology, the key anti-ALI targets of SHL oral liquid were screened as ADORA1, PTGS2, EGFR, ALOX5 and TNF, and the key pathway was PI3K-Akt signal pathway. This study provided a basis and strategy for the follow-up study of the anti-ALI molecular mechanism of SHL oral liquid and revealing the mechanism of TCM.