Hypoglycemic effect and active ingredients screening of Isodon Japonicus based on network pharmacology and experimental validation

Isodon Japonicus (IJ) has historically been widely used as herbal functional food. To date, there has been no publication regarding the hypoglycemic mechanism of IJ. This study was to study the hypoglycemic ingredients and mechanisms of IJ. The network pharmacology method was used to explore the ingredient-target-pathway relationship. There were 11 hypoglycemic ingredients, 12 hypoglycemic targets, and 130 signaling pathways for IJ on diabetes. To confirm the hypoglycemic impacts, cell tests and animal experiments were jointly carried out. With the human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) treated by water extract (0.06-2.00 g/L) and alcohol extract (0.06-2.00 g/L) of IJ, the cell viability in the water extract group (0.06-2.00 g/L) and the alcohol extract group (0.25-2.00 g/L) showed significant viability compared to that of the model group (P < 0.05), respectively. Animal experiments showed that both the water extract and the alcohol extract of IJ could lower diabetic rats' blood glucose levels compared to the model group (P < 0.05). This study proposed an effective method to explore the potential hypoglycemic ingredients, targets, signaling pathways, and pharmacological effects for IJ on diabetes. This strategy may be useful for other herbs to explore the active ingredients and pharmacological mechanism.