ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Neurosci.
Sec. Neuropharmacology
Volume 19 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnins.2025.1499214
Novel potential neuroprotective targets for DengZhanXiXin injection in MCAO rats recommended by quantitative proteomics and simulating docking
Provisionally accepted
- 1Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
- 2Institute of Basic Research in Clinical Medicine, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, China
- 3Beijing Neurosurgical Institute, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, Beijing Municipality, China
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Stroke, which leads to death and disability in high proportion globally, is one of the most deleterious neurological diseases. Ischemic stroke (IS) is the major cause of disease attack and accounts for approximately 70% of all incident stroke cases in China. Up to now, only two therapies for IS were officially approved which are intravenous administration of recombinant tissue-plasminogen activator (rt-PA) and endovascular mechanical thrombectomy to rapidly recanalize occluded artery, which both recanalize occluded artery rapidly to reduce disability but are limited in fixed time-window. In this study, the therapeutic effect of a traditional Chinese medicine DengZhanXiXin injection (DZXI) was evaluated on middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) rats at neurobehavior and pathophysiological level through neurological test, neurohistological staining, proteomic assay and biological information analysis. We found that DZXI significantly ameliorated the neurological deficit, prevented infarct volume evolution and protected cortical neural cells from death in ischemia penumbra on MCAO rats. Furthermore, corresponding therapeutic molecular targets were investigated through proteomic analysis of ischemic hemispheres of MCAO rats. 191 differentially expressed proteins involved in response to metal ion, neurofilament bundle assembly and modulation of chemical synaptic transmission were identified between the MCAO model and DZXI groups after 7-day. DZXI influenced expression levels of proteins in 13 specific biological functions, cell signaling and chemical synaptic transmission associated proteins were most effected among them. Subsequent molecular docking analysis predicted binding potential between several key target proteins and DZXI compounds.The results suggested that DZXI ameliorates neurological deficits by potentially affecting cellular signaling and chemical synaptic transmission physiological processes.
Keywords: ：DengZhanXiXin injection, ischemic stroke, MCAO, molecular docking, Cell signaling
Received: 20 Sep 2024; Accepted: 16 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Li, Wang, An, Li, Chen, Wei and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Min Li, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
Dongfeng Wei, Institute of Basic Research in Clinical Medicine, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, China
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