Chemical composition analysis of dandelion and network pharmacology study on its anticancer mechanism based on HPLC-Q-TOF-MS/MS technology
Dandelion (Taraxacum mongolicum Hand. – Mazz.) is a perennial herbaceous plant in the Asteraceae family, belonging to the dandelion genus. It has a bitter and sweet taste, a slightly cold nature, and is regulated by the liver and stomach meridians. It has the effects of clearing heat and detoxifying, reducing swelling and dispersing nodules, and promoting diuresis and drainage. In traditional Chinese medicine, it is commonly used to treat conditions such as sores, swelling and toxins, breast abscess, scrofula, redness and swelling of the eyes, sore throat, lung abscess, intestinal abscess, damp heat jaundice, and heat gonorrhea. Dandelion contains abundant phenolic acids, flavonoids, terpenes and other substances. Modern research has shown that dandelion has various pharmacological effects such as anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antioxidant, and anti-tumor.

In recent years, cancer has long been the leading cause of death in China, seriously endangering people’s health. Dandelion is often considered to have the effect of reducing swelling and dispersing nodules, which can be used to treat tumors. Modern research has shown that dandelion has certain anti-tumor effects and can effectively inhibit the proliferation of various tumor cells. Takasaki et al. conducted a study on the anti mouse skin tumor effect of dandelion root extract, and the results showed that dandelion extract has effective inhibitory effects. Zhan et al. found that dandelion extract may have the ability to reduce the positive expression of p53 in gastric cancer cells. Zhu et al. investigated the therapeutic effect of dandelion root extract on gastric cancer and found that dandelion root extract can treat gastric cancer by inhibiting the proliferation and migration of tumor cells. Several scholars have also shown that dandelion has good anti-tumor effects. In summary, dandelion has significant anti-tumor activity and can be used for the development of anti-tumor drugs.
Traditional Chinese medicine has diverse components and multiple targets, and there are synergistic effects between different targets. How to elucidate the mechanism of action of traditional Chinese medicine has become a major obstacle to its development. Network pharmacology uses high-throughput screening, network visualization, and network analysis techniques to reveal the complex network relationships between drugs, targets, and diseases, and to understand the mechanisms of drug action from multiple dimensions. This provides new research ideas for the study of multi-component and multi-target mechanisms in traditional Chinese medicine research, and has been widely used in traditional Chinese medicine research in recent years. However, there have been no reports on dandelion related research. Dandelion contains numerous chemical components, and traditional analytical methods are cumbersome and time-consuming to analyze its chemical composition. HPLC-Q-TOF-MS/MS has the advantages of high resolution, high separation, and high sensitivity. This method first separates compounds in dandelion by liquid chromatography, then analyzes the separated compounds by mass spectrometry, and finally qualitatively analyzes the compounds based on mass spectrometry information, achieving rapid analysis of traditional Chinese medicine components.
Therefore, this study first used HPLC-Q-TOF-MS/MS technology to rapidly analyze the chemical components of dandelion. On this basis, fully utilizing network pharmacology analysis techniques, starting from the overall and systematic interactions between drugs, chemical components, targets, and diseases, we explore the anti-cancer mechanism of dandelion, providing reference for dandelion in cancer prevention and treatment research.

HPLC-Q-TOF combined technology has the characteristics of high resolution, high throughput, and high sensitivity. Combined with literature and relevant databases, it can accurately and quickly perform qualitative analysis of chemical components, and is widely used in the analysis of traditional Chinese medicine components. Dandelion is used as a medicinal herb, and the distribution of various components in different parts varies greatly. At the same time, there are differences in the obtained components and contents under different extraction conditions. In this study, the extraction of dandelion whole plant was investigated using extraction solvents such as methanol solutions with concentrations of 50%, 60%, 70%, 80%, 90%, and 100%, and methanol solutions with 5% formic acid. It was found that under the 60% methanol extraction condition, the peak shape and peak appearance were generally better. Therefore, in this experiment, 60% methanol was used to extract and analyze the entire dandelion plant. The molecular formulas of the components were inferred through primary mass spectrometry, and the structures of the compounds were inferred through secondary mass spectrometry combined with relevant literature and standard samples. Finally, 29 chemical components were identified from dandelion, mainly organic acids and flavonoids, which are the main research categories for dandelion to exert various functions. This study achieved rapid analysis of the chemical components of dandelion, providing a reference for the quality control and pharmacological research of dandelion.
Dandelion has the effects of clearing heat and detoxifying, reducing swelling and dispersing nodules, and is believed to be used to treat tumors. Modern research shows that dandelion has a good anti-cancer effect, which can effectively inhibit the proliferation of cancer cells such as liver cancer, lung cancer, cervical cancer, pancreatic cancer and breast cancer, and has no cytotoxicity to normal cells. To further explore the anticancer mechanism of dandelion, this study conducted anti-cancer network pharmacology analysis on 29 chemical components obtained from the analysis. It was found that quercetin, luteolin, apigenin, paeoniflorin, caffeic acid, isorhamnetin, gallic acid, p-hydroxybenzoic acid, ferulic acid, and 3,5-dihydroxybenzoic acid may be the anticancer components of dandelion, among which quercetin, luteolin, and apigenin have stronger anticancer effects. Further research can be conducted on the anti-cancer development of dandelion by combining the content and distribution of various species in dandelion.
Several scholars have conducted research on the anticancer mechanisms of related compounds. Song et al. found that quercetin can induce autophagy by inactivating the PI3K, Akt, and mTOR signaling pathways in prostate cancer cells PC-3. Wu et al. found that quercetin can induce autophagy through the ROS-NUPR1 pathway, leading to the death of osteosarcoma cells. Li et al. found that quercetin reduced the invasion, adhesion, proliferation, and migration of human metastatic osteosarcoma cells by inhibiting PTHR1. Hashemzaei et al. conducted MMT analysis on multiple tumor cell lines and found that quercetin can induce apoptosis in all tested cancer cell lines. Seo et al. found that magnolol can downregulate calcium activated chloride ion channels (ANO1) to exert anti-cancer effects. Chen et al. found that luteolin and quercetin may inhibit RPS19 activated EMT signaling by blocking the Akt, mTOR, and c-Myc signaling pathways, thereby suppressing cancer cell metastasis. Yang et al. found that apigenin can inhibit cell proliferation and induce autophagy by suppressing the PI3K, Akt, and mTOR pathways.
Based on the interaction network diagram of target proteins, 9 core targets including AKT1, EGFR, SRC, ESR1, PTGS2, MMP9, KDR, MMP2, and PIK3R1 were selected according to their degree values. AKT1 is one of the three subtypes of AKT that plays a role in various biological effects, including cell proliferation, survival, and metabolic regulation. The imbalance of AKT can cause cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular and nervous system diseases. EGFR is a transmembrane glycoprotein that is abnormally activated through various mechanisms, such as receptor overexpression, mutation, ligand dependent receptor dimerization, ligand independent activation, and is associated with the occurrence of various human cancers. MMP is a type of proteolytic enzyme that can degrade various components of the extracellular matrix. Numerous experiments and clinical evidence indicate that MMP is involved in tumor invasion, angiogenesis, and metastasis, making it an ideal pharmacological target for cancer treatment.
The GO enrichment analysis results showed that dandelion has a significant impact on biological processes such as oxidation-reduction, negative regulation of apoptosis, protein autophosphorylation, as well as molecular functions such as ATP binding, protein kinase activity, protein serine/threonine kinase activity, and enzyme binding in the cytoplasmic membrane, cytoplasmic matrix, extracellular vesicles, and extracellular space. Cancer cells require a large amount of energy for growth, and their metabolic processes are enhanced, leading to vigorous redox reactions. At the same time, cancer cells utilize the ATP produced by metabolic processes, making ATP binding an important reaction process in cancer. Other related processes also involve the process of cancer. The KEGG pathway analysis results show that the related targets involve multiple cancer pathways, such as cancer pathway, cancer proteoglycan, PI3K Akt signal pathway, focal adhesion, cancer MicroRNAs, cancer transcriptional imbalance, bladder cancer, etc. The proteoglycans secreted by cancer cells in the cancer proteoglycan pathway induce cancer metastasis, and inhibiting this pathway can reduce cancer metastasis; The PI3K Akt signaling pathway has the function of regulating cell cycle and protein synthesis. In cancer pathogenesis, the PI3K Akt signaling pathway inhibits cell apoptosis in multiple ways, promotes cell proliferation, tumor metastasis, and angiogenesis. The above results indicate that the screened related biological processes and pathways are closely related to the anticancer mechanism of dandelion.
The pathological types of prostate cancer include adenocarcinoma, ductal adenocarcinoma, urothelial carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and adenosquamous carcinoma, of which prostate adenocarcinoma accounts for more than 95%. In the world, the incidence rate of prostate cancer ranks second and the mortality rate ranks fifth among male malignant tumors. How to study prostate cancer is a hot topic. Multiple scholars have shown that dandelion has a good inhibitory effect on prostate cancer. Modern research has shown that one of the more mature and valuable pathways for targeted therapy of prostate cancer is the phosphatidyl-3-hydroxykinase (PI3K)/serine threonine protein kinase (AKT) signaling pathway. Abnormal activation of this signaling pathway is significantly correlated with the development and prognosis of the disease, and plays an important regulatory role in the growth, proliferation, apoptosis, inflammatory response, angiogenesis, and tumor development of the body’s cells. In this study, it was found that various functional substances in dandelion can act on related targets such as AKT and PI3K. The results indicate that dandelion can be used for the development and treatment of prostate cancer. The above network pharmacology results are simulated and speculative, which have shortcomings. Further pharmacological experiments are needed to speculate on the results and provide data for the further development of dandelion.
In summary, this study analyzed the chemical components of dandelion using HPLC-Q-TOF-MS and identified a total of 29 chemical components, including 16 organic acids, 10 flavonoids, 2 coumarins, and 1 terpene. Using network pharmacology methods to study the anticancer mechanism of dandelion, it was found that components such as quercetin, luteolin, apigenin, etc. in dandelion participate in biological processes such as redox process, negative regulation of apoptosis process, protein autophosphorylation, ATP binding, protein kinase activity, protein serine/threonine kinase activity, enzyme binding, etc. by acting on core targets such as AKT1, EGFR, SRC, ESR1, etc., and then exert anticancer effects in pathways such as cancer, proteoglycans in cancer, and PI3K Akt signaling pathway.