Unravelling the anti-inflammatory mechanism of Allium cepa: an integration of network pharmacology and molecular docking approaches.

Allium cepa, commonly known as onion, is a widely consumed spice that possesses numerous pharmacological properties. A. cepa bioactive components are often explored in the treatment of inflammation-related complications. However, the molecular mechanism via which they exert their anti-inflammatory effects remains unknown. Therefore, this study aimed to elucidate the anti-inflammatory mechanism of A. cepa bioactive components. Consequently, the bioactive compounds of A. cepa were obtained from a database, while the potential targets of the sixty-nine compounds with desirable pharmacokinetic properties were predicted. Subsequently, the targets of inflammation were acquired from the GeneCards database. The protein-protein interaction (PPI) between the sixty-six shared targets of the bioactive compounds and inflammation was retrieved from the String database and visualized using Cytoscape v3.9.1 software. Gene Ontology (GO) analysis of the ten core targets from the PPI network revealed that A. cepa bioactive compounds could be involved in regulating biological processes such as response to oxygen-containing compounds and response to inflammation while Kyoto Encyclopaedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analysis revealed that A. cepa compounds might modulate pathways including AGE-RAGE signaling pathway, interleukin (IL)-17 signalling pathway, and tumor necrosis factor signaling pathway. Molecular docking analysis showed that 1-O-(4-Coumaroyl)-beta-D-glucose, stigmasterol, campesterol, and diosgenin have high binding affinities for core targets including EGFR, ALB, MMP9, CASP3, and CCL5. This study successfully elucidated the potential anti-inflammatory mechanism of A. cepa bioactive compounds, hence, providing new insights into the development of alternative anti-inflammatory drugs.