Analysis on targets of regulating Qi and activating blood based on activity spectrum of targets / 中国中药杂志

ABSTRACT

The traditional Chinese medicines(TCM) for activating blood circulation and the TCM for regulating Qi are often used in combination in clinical practice. However, their mechanisms are still unclear. The activity spectrum of targets can fuse the active components, targets and intensity of action, which provides support for the discussion of efficacy targets. The chemical components of common TCM sets for activating blood circulation and regulating Qi, as well as the negative sets not for activating blood circulation and re-gulating Qi were obtained from the database of TCM. By the similarity analysis of chemical components in TCM for activating blood circulation and DrugBank database, the predicted targets of chemical components in TCM for activating blood circulation were obtained, and the similarity value of the two was taken as the activity value of the active components and predicted targets. Then, the component-target activity value was weighted. The activity values of herb acting on the same target were fused to construct activity spectra of targets of the herbs for activating blood circulation, herbs for regulating Qi and negative herbs. The targets whose activity values of activating blood circulation and regulating Qi were higher than those of negative herbs were selected as potential targets of efficacy. Protein-protein interaction networks were constructed for topological, GO and KEGG enrichment analysis to determine the key targets of efficacy of activating blood circulation and regulating Qi. The component-target activity information collected from DrugBank database contained 4 499 compounds, 627 targets and 11 295 action relationships. The activating blood function protein-protein interaction network contained 206 nodes and 1 728 edges, while the regulating Qi function protein-protein interaction network contained 230 nodes and 986 edges. The enrichment analysis of topology, GO and KEGG showed that TCM for activating blood circulation mainly exerted its anti-inflammatory, neuroprotective and angiogenic effects on signaling cascade pathway mediated by VEGF/VEGFR2, ERK signaling pathway, calcium signaling pathway and PI3 K-AKT signaling pathway, and the key targets included mitogen activated protein kinases 3(MAPK3), proto-oncogene tyrosine-protein kinase Src(SRC), mitogen activated protein kinases 1(MAPK1), epidermal growth factor receptor(EGFR), phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate 3-kinase catalytic subunit alpha isoform(PIK3 CA), peroxisome proliferators-activated receptor gamma(PPARG), nitric oxide synthase 3(NOS3), prostaglandin G/H synthetase 2(PTGS2), matrix metalloproteinase-9(MMP9), and vascular endothelial growth factor A(VEGFA). TCM for regulating Qi mainly exerted anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective effects by acting on MAPK signaling pathway and PI3 K-AKT signaling pathway, and the key targets included mitogen activated protein kinases 8(MAPK8), SRC, mitogen activated protein kinases 14(MAPK14), and RAC-alpha serine/threonine-protein kinase(AKT1), mitogen activated protein kinases 3(MAPK3). Based on the activity spectrum of targets, the targets of the TCM for activating blood and the targets of the TCM for regulating Qi were analyzed to provide reference for the study of efficacy targets of TCM, and also provide some scientific basis for clinical application.