Mechanism of Shaoyao Gancao Decoction in treatment of rheumatoid arthritis based on network pharmacology / 中草药

ABSTRACT

Objective: To study the mechanism of Shaoyao Gancao Decoction in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) based on network pharmacology. Methods: The active components of Shaoyao Gancao Decoction were obtained from traditional Chinese medicine systems pharmacology (TCMSP) database, and human target proteins corresponding to active components were searched in Swiss Target Prediction and TCMSP database. The targets of RA were collected through Therapeutic Target Database and Drugbank database. The key targets of Shaoyao Gancao Decoction to treat RA were screened by building the Venn diagram. And the key protein interaction (PPI) network model was constructed by STRING database. The gene ontology (GO) and pathway enrichment analysis were performed by DAVID database. All of the correlative results were visualized by Cytoscape 3.7.2, and the network feature analysis was made by Network Analyzer. Results: A total of 102 compounds were obtained from Shaoyao Gancao Decoction, with 310 corresponding targets, and 68 common targets of Shaoyao Gancao Decoction-RA were obtained. Herb-compound-target-pathway network showed that kaempferol, quercetin, formononetin, naringenin, isorhamnetin were the key compounds of Shaoyao Gancao Decoction in the treatment of RA, and PTGS2, NOS2, MAPK14, PPARG, IL-6, TNF, and IL-1β were the key targets. GO entries included 28 biological process entries, two cellular component entries, and 13 molecular function entries. There were 40 pathways involving TNF signaling pathway, osteoclast differentiation, T cell receptor signaling pathway, MAPK signaling pathway, steroid hormone biosynthesis and toll-like receptor signaling pathway. Conclusion: The results of this study verify the multi-component, multi-target and multi-pathway regulation characteristics of Shaoyao Gancao Decoction, preliminarily predict material basis and mechanism of Shaoyao Gancao Decoction in the treatment of RA, which provides reference for further research.