Abstract
BACKGROUND: The pain and suffering of patients with hemorrhoids are strongly impacted by the inadequacy of available treatment options, with more severe cases facing suboptimal outcomes. Owing to its known properties, the traditional Thai medicine Clerodendrum serratum (Linn.) Moon (CSM) served as the cornerstone for this investigational study. METHODS: To validate and scrutinize the extent of the therapeutic effects of CSM, we compared two drying techniques: a dehydration chamber and a hot air oven. Analysis of computational biology, otherwise known as "network pharmacology," was employed to hypothesize and validate key pharmacological targets and investigate the toxicity and anti-inflammatory properties of CSM in L929 and RAW 264.7 cells. Furthermore, this study presents the development of a niosome-based enhanced therapeutic delivery formulation for CSM. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: Inhibiting the production of nitric oxide (NO) demonstrated that CSM dehydration performed in the dehydration chamber resulted in an IC(50) of 8.50 ± 0.39 μg/mL, while the hot air oven method was cytotoxic (15.29 ± 3.17 μg/mL). The anti-inflammatory response has been linked to the following key genes: NF-κB1, PTGS2, ALOX5, EGFR, and NFE2L2. For maximum yield and encapsulation efficiency, the optimal Span 60:Tween 80: Cholesterol ratio was 11.0:19.0:13.5. CONCLUSIONS: The data indicate that CSM extract, especially when dehydrated in a dehydration chamber and then encapsulated in niosomes, has the potential to serve as a safe and effective therapeutic for hemorrhoids. The findings also emphasize the role of the drying method in retaining the bioactivity of plant extracts and the need for niosomes as a delivery system to improve bioavailability.