Fig. 4
From: MOST: most-similar ligand based approach to target prediction
Predicting and validating the mechanism-of-action target which mediated the lataxive effect of aloe-emodin, natural product from CTM. a, aloe-emodin was predicted to act on acetylcholinesterase (ACHE) by MOST via the most-similar ligand, CHEMBL3233826. The IC50 of ACHE inhibition by aloe-emodin was reported to be 26.8 μM (Wang et al. [14]). Inhibition of ACHE results in elevating the level of acetylcholine, activating muscarinic receptors (M2 and M3), and enhancing the gastrointestinal motility. b, aloe-emodin dose-dependently stimulated the fecal pellets in mice. c, the stimulative effect of aloe-emodin was abolished by muscarinic receptors antagonist, atropine. For each group, the relative fecal pellets in 2 h were compared with the control group, and tested by unpaired t-test in Prism 6 (n = 10; ****, p < 0.0001; *, p < 0.05). All data in b and c are presented in Mean ± S.E.M