Investigation of Analgesic Mechanisms of Bupleuri Radix with Network Pharmacology / 中国药学杂志

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: To analyze the major analgesic mechanism and target of Bupleuri Radix with a network pharmacology method, clarify the difference targets between oral administration and injection administration, and validate the possible biological target for its quality evaluation. METHODS: The chemical components and potential targets of Bupleuri Radix were collected based on the database and literature searching and the analgesic associated targets were searched from Genecards database. All of the targets combined with interactional proteins from DIP database were used to construct a “compound-target-disease” network and the major analgesic mechanism of Bupleuri Radix were then predicted by the key function targets screened from it. RESULTS: According to the results of network analysis, 13 key targets were screened out, including trypsin-1, prothrombin, dipeptidyl peptidase 4, acetylcholinesterase, COX-2, androgen receptor, estrogen receptor, GABA receptor α1 and NOS-3, which might affect the process of cell proliferation, arginine catabolic process, platelet activation and so on. Trypsinogen-1, cyclooxygenase-2 and nitric oxide synthase-3 were the main targets for both of them, and could be used as the targets for biological evaluation of Bupleuri Radix. At the same time, there were some differences between oral administration and injection of Bupleuri Radix, the excessive effects of injection components on prothrombin may be associated with the adverse reactions of injection. Otherwise, inhibition of COX-2 enzyme activity by in vitro testing showed that Bupleuri Radix has good activity at the concentration of 3.125-50 μg•mL-1. CONCLUSION: Network pharmacology provides the potential to predict the analgesic mechanism and to establish new quality evaluation METHODS of Bupleuri Radix.