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Cell Signaling

ISSN: 2837-8253

Research Article Open Access
Volume 2 | Issue 1 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.46439/signaling.2.025

Molecular docking combined with in vitro validation study to explore the effect of lupenone on alleviating renal fibrosis based on TGF-?/Smad/CTGF signaling pathway

Xiangpei Wang1,#, Hongyun Liu2,#, Xiaofen Li2, Mei Zhang2, Feng Xu2,3, Mei Liu2, Hongmei Wu2,*
  • #These authors contributed equally to this work
  • 1School of Chinese Ethnic Medicine, Guizhou Minzu University, Guiyang 550025, China
  • 2Department of Pharmacy, Guizhou University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Guiyang 550025, China
  • 3School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Nanyang Technological University, 637371, Singapore
+ Affiliations - Affiliations

Corresponding Author

Hongmei Wu, whm0425@126.com

Received Date: November 05, 2023

Accepted Date: January 01, 2024

Citation:

Wang X, Liu H, Li X, Zhang M, Xu F, Liu M, et al. Molecular docking combined with in vitro validation study to explore the effect of lupenone on alleviating renal fibrosis based on TGF-?/Smad/CTGF signaling pathway. Cell Signal. 2024;2(1):23-34.


Copyright: © 2024 Wang X, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Hyperglycemia and renal fibrosis play critical roles in the occurrence and development of diabetic complications such as diabetic nephropathy (DN). Lupenone, a stable pentacyclic triterpenoid compound, has anti-hyperglycemic and anti-renal fibrosis activities. Previous research has confirmed that lupenone can improve renal fibrosis in type 2 diabetic nephropathy by regulating TGF-?/Smad/CTGF signaling pathway. However, the binding power of lupenone with its related targets has not been confirmed, and it is unclear whether it exerts anti-renal fibrosis effects as a prototype component. Therefore, the aim of this study was to identify the underlying mechanism of lupenone on anti-renal fibrosis based on the TGF-?/ Smad/CTGF signaling pathway and elucidate their binding ability using molecular docking and in vitro cell experiments. Molecular docking results suggested that lupenone combined well with fibronectin, TGF-?1, T?RI, T?RII, Smad2, Smad3, Smad4, Smad7 and Smurf2, respectively. And lupenone could significantly reduce high glucose-induced MCs cytotoxicity. Furthermore, lupenone significantly downregulated the mRNA and protein expression of collagen-I, collagen-IV, fibronectin, TGF-?1, p-T?RI/T?RI, T?RII, p-Smad2/ Smad2, p-Smad/Smad3, Smad4, Smurf2, and CTGF in high glucose-induced MCs, with the best effect observed in the high-dose lupenone group. These results concluded that lupenone could inhibit the generation of fibrosis factors collagen-I, collagen-IV, and fibronectin and delay the process of fibrosis by regulating the TGF-?/Smad/CTGF signaling pathway in MCs.

Keywords

Molecular docking, lupenone, TGF-?/Smad/CTGF signaling pathway, Renal fibrosis, Diabetic nephropathy

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