Treatment of Cardiovascular Disease by Traditional Chinese Medicine against Pregnane X Receptor

Recently, cardiovascular disease, also known as loop circulatory system diseases or disorders, is one of the serious diseases including heart disease, stroke, atherosclerosis, myocardial infarction, hypertension, hypotension, and thrombosis. Human pregnane X receptor, PXR, plays a crucial role in exogenous and endobiotic metabolism for rabbit, rat, mouse, and human. The PXR activation can protect the blood vessels from damage of hazardous substances. In this study we aim to investigate the potent lead compounds as PXR receptor agonist against cardiovascular disease. To improve drug development of TCM compounds, we aim to investigate the potent lead compounds as PXR agonists from the TCM compounds in TCM Database@Taiwan. The top three TCM compounds, bis(4-hydroxybenzyl) ether mono-β-D-glucopyranoside (BEMG), ixerisoside, and tangshenoside II, have displayed higher potent binding affinities than the positive control, PNU-142721, in the docking simulation. After MD simulations, which can optimize the result of docking simulation and validate the stability of H-bonds between each ligand and PXR protein under dynamic conditions, top TCM compounds, BEMG and tangshenoside II, maintain most of interactions with PXR protein, which keep the ligand binding stable in the binding domain. Hence, we propose BEMG and tangshenoside II as potential lead compounds for further study in drug development process with the PXR protein.