A network pharmacology approach to explore mechanisms of activating blood circulation and removing blood stasis herbs in the treatment of endometriosis / 药学实践杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To explore the possible mechanism of activating blood circulation and removing blood stasis herbs in the treatment of endometriosis (EM) with network pharmacology approach. Methods Seven kinds of commonly used activating blood circulation and removing blood stasis herbs, such as peach kernel, safflower, zeilan, salvia miltiorrhiza, leonuri, radix cyathulae, and wang buliuxing were selected as the research subjects. TCMSP platform, a database of traditional Chinese medicine chemical ingredients, was used to retrieve the effective ingredients of 7 herbs. The targets of the effective ingredients were obtained through the Targets information software. GeneCards database was used to collect EM related target genes. Venn diagram tool was used to obtain the target genes of active ingredients of activating blood circulation and removing blood stasis herbs. Cytoscape 3.6.0 software was used to construct the active ingredient-target-disease network. KEGG database was used to analyze the signal pathways of target gene enrichment. Results A total of 94 active ingredients and 119 targets of 7 herbs were screened. Quercetin, luteolin and kaempferol were the key active components. PTGS2, PTGS1, NCOA2 and NCOA1 were the key targets. The 7 herbs have 20 related KGEE pathways, involving sex hormones, inflammation, apoptosis and angiogenesis. PI3K-Akt signaling pathway, IL-17 signaling pathway, TNF signaling pathway were the main pathways. Conclusion The treatment of EM with activating blood circulation and removing blood stasis herbs has the characteristics of multiple components, multiple targets and multiple pathways, which can relieve the pain, inflammation and menstrual disorders symptoms of EM.