Rapid Analysis of Chemical Constituents in <i>Blachia pentzii</i> Leaves and Predictive Analysis of the Pharmacological Effects for Treatment of Rheumatoid Arthritis

Blachia pentzii has no history of ethnic or folk medicinal use. Its medicinal value deserves further exploration. Currently, the molecular networking (MN) technology and network pharmacology methods contribute to exploring the potential medicinal value of plants with relatively few reported chemical components. In the present study, we provided a method for rapid analysis of chemical constituents in Blachia pentzii leaves (BPL) and a network pharmacology study of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), especially when the identification is limited by the MN technology. Finally, a total of 64 components were annotated, including structural types such as terpenoids, phenolic acids, steroids, fatty acid derivatives, and phospholipids. Network pharmacological analysis revealed that the chemical constituents of BPL exert anti-RA effects by acting on 56 core targets, including IL6, TP53, TNF, STAT3, and BCL2, and regulating signaling pathways such as Proteoglycans in cancer, HIF-1 signaling pathway, Lipid and atherosclerosis, and AGE-RAGE signaling pathway in diabetic complications. The selected effective ingredients could play synergistic roles in anti-RA, indicating that BPL contains anti-RA effective ingredients and that the relevant active substances have the potential to be developed into anti-RA drugs and deserve in-depth research in chemistry and pharmacology.