Polypharmacological Exploration of Petroselinum Crispum for Antifibrotic Therapeutics: from Herb to Hepatoprotection.

Plant-based therapeutics are of immense importance in modern drug discovery owing to their multi-targeted mechanisms and favourable safety profiles. Among these, Petroselinum crispum has long been utilised in traditional medicine, yet remains underexplored for its potential against liver fibrosis, a progressive condition lacking effective antifibrotic therapies. In this study, a comprehensive computational strategy was employed to systematically investigate the hepatoprotective potential of P. crispum metabolites. A total of 177 phytochemicals from P. crispum were screened based on drug-likeness properties, while 10,014 liver fibrosis-associated genes were retrieved from established databases. Integration of compound-target predictions with disease-related gene sets identified key overlapping inflammatory mediators. Network pharmacology analysis, followed by molecular docking and dynamics simulations, revealed CXCL8, IL1B, and CSF2 as central targets potentially modulated by P. crispum flavonoids, apigenin and luteolin. The findings demonstrated stable binding interactions, supported by favourable binding energies. Although apigenin's interaction with IL1B has been reported in inflammatory conditions, its specific modulatory role on CXCL8 and CSF2 within the context of liver fibrosis remains unexplored. Notably, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate that luteolin stably interacts with all three targets in the context of hepatic fibrosis. These findings highlight the polypharmacological nature of these flavonoids in modulating multiple cytokine-driven signaling pathways for the therapeutic repositioning of P. crispum constituents in chronic liver disease.