Ethnic pharmacology relevance: Sishen Wan (SSW) is a classic traditional Chinese medicine compound, composed of Er Shen Wan and Wu Wei Zi San. It has been traditionally used for gastrointestinal diseases and is currently widely applied in the prevention and treatment of colon cancer (CC), demonstrating good clinical efficacy. However, its active components in the bloodstream and potential mechanisms of action remain unclear.
Aim of the study: This study aims to clarify the mechanism of action of SSW against CC through the integration of blood component analysis, network pharmacology, and experimental verification.
Materials and methods: We identified the blood-entry constituents of SSW using UPLC-Q-Orbitrap HRMS. Network pharmacology approaches were employed to screen key targets, construct a protein-protein interaction (PPI) network, and perform GO/KEGG enrichment analyses. The predictions were experimentally validated using human colon cancer cell lines (such as HCT116 and CT26) and a mouse subcutaneous tumor model.
Results: A total of 27 blood-entry constituents of SSW were identified, predominantly organic acids. Network pharmacology analysis revealed 160 compound-disease common targets, with 10 key targets screened through PPI network analysis. Molecular docking was employed to validate the potential binding mechanisms and affinity between SSW and key targets, demonstrating its favorable binding potential with these targets. Molecular dynamics simulations further confirmed the strong binding stability of SSW with each target. KEGG enrichment analysis suggested that the anti-colon cancer effects of SSW are potentially mediated through the PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway and the STAT3-mitophagy pathway. In vitro experiments demonstrated that SSW drug-containing serum significantly induced apoptosis, reduced colon cancer cell viability, and suppressed cell proliferation and migration. In vivo results showed that SSW inhibited tumor growth in a mouse subcutaneous colon cancer model, as evidenced by reduced fluorescence intensity (indicating tumor shrinkage) and decreased tumor weight (with approximately 71 % tumor inhibition rate in the medium-dose group). Pathological analysis indicated attenuated tumor malignancy. Mechanistic studies using Western blot and qPCR confirmed that SSW regulated the expression of proteins including p-PI3K/PI3K, p-STAT3/STAT3, Caspase-3, BAX, BCL-2, PINK1, and Parkin.
Conclusion: SSW exerts anti-colon cancer effects by promoting apoptosis, inhibiting proliferation and migration, and modulating mitochondrial autophagy via the PI3K/AKT/mTOR and STAT3-mitophagy signaling pathways. This study provides a mechanistic basis for the clinical application of SSW and highlights its potential as a multi-target integrated therapy for CC.
Copyright © 2025. Published by Elsevier B.V.