Aspects of Molecular Medicine (Jun 2025)
Unveiling the molecular mechanisms and clinical implications of maslinic acid in diabetes mellitus: Insights from network pharmacology
Abstract
Maslinic acid(MA), a natural pentacyclic triterpene, has potent anti-tumor activity and exerts effects by various mechanisms, including apoptosis, cell cycle arrest, autophagy regulation, and angiogenesis alteration. We investigated the Network pharmacology and Molecular docking analysis of Maslinic Acid The network pharmacology report shows that 23 overlapping targets were identified with Maslinic Acid. Followed by the binding scores were found to be similar to the reference standard Rosiglitazone & Pioglitazone. Maslinic Acid exerts its effect on insulin resistance via inhibition of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor, α-amylase, and α-glucosidase inhibition, glycogen phosphorylase inhibition, reduction in ghrelin concentration, downregulation of SGLT1 and GLUT2 genes, NF-κB suppression, Nrf2 activation, and AMPK/SIRT 1 pathway activation. The Network analysis and docking score confirm the diabetic activity of Maslinic Acid. This study aims to study various targets of Maslinic Acid in correlation to Diabetes mellitus and analyze their mechanism in detail. Our investigation of MA as a potential treatment target for insulin resistance or diabetes mellitus using network pharmacology revealed that it has significant roles in producing glucose-lowering activity by regulating glucose homeostasis via several insulin signaling pathways discussed above.