Screening of the Active Components of Qinbai Qingfei Concentrated Pill on Treating Pneumonia Based on UHPLC/Q-Exactive Orbitrap MS Uniting Network Pharmacology

In order to screen the active ingredients of Qinbai Qingfei Concentrated Pill (QQCP) on treating pneumonia contributed by Pheretima, the extracts of QQCP with and without Pheretima were detected by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography/quadrupole-exactive Orbitrap mass spectrometry (UHPLC/Q-Exactive Orbitrap MS) after conducting the cell anti-inflammatory experiment. Compound Discoverer (CD) software was used to screen the differential ions, and the differential components were identified according to MS2 spectra and standards. Further, the active ingredients and targets were predicted by carrying out network pharmacology of differential components treating pneumonia. At last, active ingredients which were identified by standards and their corresponding targets were verified by molecular docking and real-time fluorescent quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). The results of cell anti-inflammatory experiments showed that QQCP can exert anti-inflammatory activity by decreasing the expression of IL6, IL-1b, CXCL2 and CXCR2. After detecting the extracts of QQCP by applying UHPLC/QExactive Orbitrap MS, a total of 15 components are identified on the basis of their retention time, MS/MS spectra as well as standards. After that, there are 7 components connecting and 22 core targets obtained by applying networkpharmacology. After verified by molecular docking and RT-qPCR, α-linolenic acid and adenosine are considered as the active components of QQCP treating pneumonia. This study develops a method of UHPLC/Q-Exactive Orbitrap MS uniting network pharmacology to screen the contributing active components from one medicine in Chinese medicine compounds, which provides a new idea for the study on active components of Chinese medicine compounds. © 2024 Chinese Society for Mass Spectrometry. All rights reserved.