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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Cancer Immunity and Immunotherapy
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1559400
This article is part of the Research Topic Immune-genetic dynamics in disease progression and therapeutic strategies View all articles
Huoshan Dendrobium Zengye Jiedu Formula Mitigates Radiation-Induced Oral Mucositis and Improves Oral Immune Microenvironment by Targeting the EGFR/PI3K/AKT Pathway: Evidence from Network Pharmacology, Molecular Docking, and Experimental Validation
Provisionally accepted
Chang Liu 1
Xinru Liu 1 Jiabao Liu 1
Hao Zhang 1 Pengcheng Zhang 2
Xingxing Huo 1
Hang Song 3
Yongfu Zhu 1*- 1 First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Hefei, China
- 2 The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou, Jiangsu Province, China
- 3 School of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, Anhui University of Chinese Medicine, Hefei, Anhui Province, China
Objective: To explore the therapeutic effects of Huoshan Dendrobium Zengye Jiedu Formula (HDZJF) in radiation-induced oral mucositis (RIOM) by combining bioinformatics with experimental methods.Methods: Bioactive components of HDZJF and RIOM-related targets were retrieved from public databases. Core therapeutic targets and pathways were systematically analyzed via protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks, Gene Ontology (GO), and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment. Molecular docking evaluated interactions between HDZJF components and key targets. A rat RIOM model validated HDZJF efficacy by assessing mucositis severity, inflammatory cytokines, and EGFR/PI3K/AKT pathway protein expression.Results: A total of 102 bioactive components and 379 potential targets for RIOM were identified. GO and KEGG enrichment analyses suggest that HDZJF exerts therapeutic effects on RIOM by modulating processes such as angiogenesis, inflammation, and apoptosis through pathways like PI3K-AKT. Molecular docking confirmed strong binding affinities between HDZJF components and key targets. In vivo, HDZJF reduced inflammation, promoted mucosal healing, improved body weight, and modulated protein expression related to EGFR/PI3K/AKT.Conclusion: HDZJF alleviates RIOM by targeting the EGFR/PI3K/AKT pathway, inhibiting inflammation and apoptosis. These findings suggest that HDZJF has promising clinical potential for treating RIOM and warrants further investigation for its therapeutic application in clinical settings.
Keywords: Radiation-Induced Oral Mucositis, Pharmacological mechanism, Network Pharmacology, molecular docking, experimental validation
Received: 12 Jan 2025; Accepted: 21 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu, Liu, Liu, Zhang, Zhang, Huo, Song and Zhu. 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:
Yongfu Zhu, First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Hefei, China
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