Mechanism of Yang-tonifying herbs distributing along kidney meridians in molecular level by network pharmacology / 中草药

ABSTRACT

Objective: To predict the unique mechanism of Yang-tonifying herbs distributing along kidney meridians in molecular level through network pharmacology technology. Methods: Eight kidney-yang tonifying herbs with common clinical effects and clear therapeutic effects were selected in study. The chemical ingredients of traditional Chinese medicines were searched by TCMSP database. OB and DL values were applied to screen the active substance and the chemical similarity target prediction methods of Pub Chem database were used to predict the target proteins of TCM; The PPI between the target proteins of the kidney-yang tonifying herbs and the KEGG signal pathway were searched by the STRING database; The nodes in the PPI network were evaluated by the weighted PageRank algorithm and then the core target protein was screened. Using the Cytoscape 3.6.0 software, a compound-target network, a herb-target-PPI network, and a target-pathway network were constructed. Results: Through the network analysis, 21 key targets and 40 signal pathways of the kidney-yang tonifying herbs were screened. The medicinal played the role of warming and tonifying kidney-yang by T cell regulation, sex hormone regulation, immune response, and delaying aging. The mechanism may be related to thyroid hormone signaling pathway, neurotrophin signaling pathway, TNF signaling pathway and estrogen signaling pathway. Conclusion: The method based on network pharmacology could help to find the key targets and signal pathways of the kidney-yang tonifying herbs, which provides useful information and data support for further interpretation of the classification meaning of the kidney-yang tonifying herbs in TCM