Yang C, Peng X, Liu H-Y, Li X-Q, Rao G-C, Xie Z-Y, Yang Q-F, Du L, Xie C-G
Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, West China Hospital, Sichuan University and Collaborative Innovation Center of Biotherapy, Chengdu, Sichuan, China.
Eur Rev Med Pharmacol Sci. 2023 Mar;27(5):1774-1792. doi: 10.26355/eurrev_202303_31539.
The aim of this study was to investigate the modular characteristics and mechanism of action of Chinese herbs for vascular calcification (VC) treatment.
Network pharmacology coupled with literature data mining was utilized to assess the Chinese herbal clinical performance as well as its similarity, characteristics, ingredient, target, and Gene Ontology (GO) analysis, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment, and network construction.
The top 15 medications from the literature, according to the usage, and 190 active chemicals, 183 common targets between medication and VC-related targets were weeded out. Analysis of the relationships between the active ingredients, pharmacological targets, and signaling pathways helped to clearly define the therapeutic effect of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Importantly, we discovered seven most hub proteins (AKT1, CTNNB1, TNF, EGFR, TP53, JUN and IL-6) and two of the herbs' most fundamental ingredients (Formononetin and Luteolin) in TCM-mediated VC suppression. Mechanistically, the metabolic pathways [AGE-RAGE pathway, interleukin-17 (IL-17) pathway, and p53 pathway] as well as smooth muscle adaptation (functional remodeling) and oxidoreductase activity (redox homeostasis modulating) are also crucially implicated.
Our work, accomplished by network pharmacology and data mining, increases our understanding of TCM in VC therapy and may offer insightful information for future drug discovery investigations.
本研究旨在探讨用于治疗血管钙化（VC）的中药的模块化特征及作用机制。
利用网络药理学结合文献数据挖掘来评估中药的临床疗效及其相似性、特征、成分、靶点，并进行基因本体（GO）分析、京都基因与基因组百科全书（KEGG）通路富集及网络构建。
根据用药情况从文献中筛选出前15味药物，去除190种活性化学成分及药物与VC相关靶点之间的183个共同靶点。对活性成分、药理靶点和信号通路之间的关系进行分析，有助于明确中药的治疗效果。重要的是，我们在中药介导的VC抑制中发现了7种最核心的蛋白质（AKT1、CTNNB1、TNF、EGFR、TP53、JUN和IL-6）以及两种中药最基本的成分（芒柄花黄素和木犀草素）。从机制上讲，代谢途径[晚期糖基化终产物-受体（AGE-RAGE）途径、白细胞介素-17（IL-17）途径和p53途径]以及平滑肌适应性（功能重塑）和氧化还原酶活性（氧化还原稳态调节）也至关重要。
我们通过网络药理学和数据挖掘完成的工作，加深了我们对中药治疗VC的理解，并可能为未来的药物发现研究提供有价值的信息。
