Network pharmacology-based study on mechanism of liver protection of Erzhi Pill / 药学学报

ABSTRACT

This study was designed to construct a "drug-core target-pathway" network of Erzhi Pill for hepatic injury treatment in an effort to explore the "multi-components, multi-targets, multi-pathways" mechanism. ADME/T calculation method was used to screen the active components of Erzhi Pill, and then predict the potential targets according to the reverse pharmacophore matching method. Biological information annotation databases (DAVID) was used to analyze the molecular function and biological process of the action targets. The Cytoscape software was used to construct the "ingredient-core target-pathway" network of Erzhi Pill for hepatic injury treatment. It was found that 39 major active ingredients of Erzhi Pill regulated 321 targets (HRAS, DCK, HSD17B1, UCK2, et al) and affected 51 pathways, such as insulin signaling pathway, FoxO signaling pathway, metabolic pathways and glycolysis/gluconeogenesis. The method revealed the action features of traditional Chinese medicine as multi-ingredients, multi-targets, multi-pathways, providing new clues for further basic study on the hepatic injury pharmacological mechanism of Erzhi Pill.