Compound Muji Granules enhances cisplatin efficacy against alpha-fetoprotein-producing gastric cancer by suppressing epidermal growth factor receptor signaling

Figure 1 Effects of Compound Muji Granules combined with cisplatin on the phenotype of alpha-fetoprotein-producing gastric cancer FU97 cells. A: Cell proliferation; B: Alpha-fetoprotein secretion; C: Cell migration (representative images and quantification); D: Cell invasion (representative images and quantification); E: Cell cycle distribution; F: Cell apoptosis. ^aP < 0.05. ^bP < 0.01. ^cP < 0.001. OD: Optical density; AFP: Alpha-fetoprotein; CMG: Compound Muji Granules; DPP: Cisplatin; RMSD: Root mean square deviation; CV: Coefficient of variation; PE-A: Phycoerythrin-are.

Figure 2 Network pharmacology analysis results. A: Venn diagram; B: Protein-protein interaction network; C: Gene Ontology enrichment analysis; D: Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis. AFPGC: Alpha-fetoprotein-producing gastric cancer; CMG: Compound Muji Granules; AGE-RAGE: Advanced glycation end products-receptor advanced glycation end products; EGFR: Epidermal growth factor receptor; PI3K: Phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase; AKT: Protein kinase B.

Figure 3 Gene expression results. A: Relative expression levels detected by quantitative real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction; B: Quantitative analysis of protein expression levels based on densitometric analysis of western blot bands; C: Representative western blot bands. ^aP < 0.05. ^bP < 0.01. ^cP < 0.001. CMG: Compound Muji Granules; DPP: Cisplatin; EGFR: Epidermal growth factor receptor; mTOR: Mammalian target of rapamycin; p-AKT1: Phosphorylated-AKT1; p-mTOR: Phosphorylated-mammalian target of rapamycin; p-PIK3R1: Phosphorylated-PIK3R1.

Figure 4 Heatmap of affinity values from molecular docking between active components of Compound Muji Granules and epidermal growth factor receptor. EGFR: Epidermal growth factor receptor.

Figure 5 Binding models of Compound Muji Granules active components with epidermal growth factor receptor showing docking affinity values < -8.