Uncovering the Mechanism of Scopoletin in Ameliorating Psoriasis-Like Skin Symptoms via Inhibition of PI3K/Akt/mTOR Signaling Pathway

Psoriasis is a common chronic inflammatory skin disease, that always seriously decreases the patient's quality of life. To date, the drugs used to treat psoriasis have severe side effects and poor efficacy, making the development of new drugs urgent. Scopoletin (SCP), a coumarin component extracted from plants such as Artemisia indica and Arabidopsis thaliana, was reported to have anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory effects. In this study, network pharmacology and molecular docking techniques were utilized to predict the potential possibilities and mechanism of SCP's therapeutic effects on psoriasis. It was shown that SCP may mainly affect interleukin-17 (IL-17), tumor necrosis factor (TNF) and phosphoinositide-3 kinase/protein kinase-B/mammalian target of rapamycin (PI3K/Akt/mTOR) signaling pathway, especially the key targets including TNF, Akt1, IL-6, epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and heat shock protein 90 alpha family class A member 1 (HSP90AA1). Imiquimod (IMQ)-induced psoriasis-like mice were used to verify the therapeutic effects of SCP. We observed SCP could significantly alleviate psoriasis-like skin symptoms, improve the pathological changes, inhibit spleen enlargement and decrease the expression of inflammation factors in IMQ-induced mice. Besides, SCP could also inhibit the phosphorylation of PI3K, Akt, and mTOR, and the good docking activity of SCP with the three pathway proteins further proved SCP can treat psoriasis via PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway. In conclusion, SCP may be a potential drug for treating psoriasis and is worth further research.