ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Pharmacology of Anti-Cancer Drugs
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1587856
This article is part of the Research TopicDrug Development for Pancreatic Cancer: Novel Targets, Drug Candidates and MechanismsView all 3 articles
Molecular targets and mechanisms of cortex mori for lung cancer treatment: A network pharmacology study, molecular docking and in vitro and in vivo experimental validation
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Pharmacy, Affiliated Dongguan Hospital, Southern Medical University, Dongguan, China
- 2Zunyi Medical University, Zunyi, Guizhou Province, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
The cortex mori comes from the white endothelium of the young root of Morus alba L., and its medical value was first described in Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing (Classic on Materia Medical of Shennong). In recent years, accumulating clinical evidences exhibited that it can treat asthma, pneumonia and lung cancer. However, a comprehensive mechanism of cortex mori in the treatment of lung cancer needs to be further elucidated. Herein, a systematic study was designed to investigate the effect of cortex mori and its active components against lung cancer and explore its action and mechanism through network pharmacological analysis combined with biological experiments in vitro and in vivo. The regulatory network of Chinese medicine -active ingredient -disease -targets showed that cortex mori acted on 163 disease targets of lung cancer mainly by cyclomorusin, kuwanon D and Moracin A, etc. The core genes involving cortex mori treating lung cancer might consist of JUN, AKT1, etc. Biologic cytological experiments showed that the effective active component cyclomorusin inhibited proliferation, inhibited migration and induced apoptosis of lung cancer through AKT-PI3K pathway. In vivo antitumor assay demonstrated that cyclomorusin suppressed the tumor growth in mice.
Keywords: lung cancer, Cortex mori, Network Pharmacology, mechanism of action, target, Pathway
Received: 05 Mar 2025; Accepted: 28 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Shao, Yang, He, Zhang, Han, Xie and He. 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: Ruirong He, Department of Pharmacy, Affiliated Dongguan Hospital, Southern Medical University, Dongguan, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.