Medicinal Plant Research 2025, Vol.15, No.4, 178-187 http://hortherbpublisher.com/index.php/mpr 183 Gene knockout and overexpression studies have revealed that, the molecular mechanism of action of ASPs. For example, in liver fibrosis models, blocking IL-22 or STAT3 eliminates the anti-fibrotic effect of ASPs, thereby confirming the key role of these pathways (Wang et al., 2020a). In the tumor model, by manipulating the expression of miRNA and its target genes, the regulatory axis of ASPs exerting anti-tumor effects was further demonstrated (Cai et al., 2024). 6 Case Studies 6.1 Anti-inflammatory roles in arthritis models In collagen-induced and adjuvant induced arthritis models, ASPs reduce joint swelling, inhibit the production of anti-type II collagen antibodies, and lower the levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, such as TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-1β (Li et al., 2020; Hu et al., 2022; Xue et al., 2023). Xue et al. (2023) explored the anti-inflammatory mechanism of ASPs in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in rats with collagen-induced arthritis (CIA). The results showed that, ASPs can inhibit the proliferation, migration and invasion of synovial fibroblast-like cells (FLS) induced by tumor necrosis factor -α (TNF-α) in vitro, promote cell apoptosis and arrest the cell cycle at the G0/G1 phase. ASPs also reduced the expression levels of inflammatory factors, like IL-6, IL-1β, iNOS and MMPs, indicating that it has multi-target anti-inflammatory effects. Mechanism studies further revealed that, ASPs exert effect by inhibiting the phosphorylation activity of the JAK2/STAT3 and MAPK signaling pathways, among which the JAK2/STAT3 pathway may be located upstream of MAPK (Xue et al., 2023). By blocking signal transduction and reducing the secretion of inflammatory factors, the joint inflammatory response can be alleviated (Figure 2). Figure 2 Schematic diagram of the mechanism by which ASP inhibits inflammation of rat CIA-FLS through the JAK2/STAT3 and MAPK signaling pathways (Adopted from Xue et al., 2023) 6.2 Application in ulcerative colitis models In the ulcerative colitis (UC) model, ASPs exhibit a good anti-inflammatory effect. In the colitis model, which induced by sodium dextran sulfate (DSS) and 2, 4-dinitrobenzenesulfonic acid (DNBS), ASPs can reduce the expression of pro-inflammatory factors, such as IL-6, IL-1β and TNF-α, and inhibit myeloperoxidase activity in colon tissue (Cheng et al., 2020; Zou et al., 2023). ASPs can alleviate oxidative stress, with the help of restoring glutathione levels, and reducing malondialdehyde content, thereby resisting tissue damage mediated by
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