ABSTRACT
【Objective】 To explore the potential molecular biological mechanism of Belamcanda chinensis in the treatment of glioma based on network pharmacology, molecular docking technology and in vitro cell experiments. 【Methods】 ① The active components, targets of Belamcanda chinensis and targets of glioma were obtained by database search. String database was used to analyze protein-protein interaction relationship, R project was used to analyze gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway, Cytoscape software was used to build "compound-target-disease" network and PPI network, and AutoDock software was used to verify molecular docking. ② Western blotting, qRT-PCT and apoptosis assay were used to verify the enrichment results of network pharmacology targets and protein pathway. 【Results】 ① We screened out 32 types of active components, 484 types of targets and 464 types of glioma targets, and obtained 62 kinds of therapeutic targets after mapping. We obtained 12 kinds of key pharmacodynamic molecules such as Isoiridogermanal, Iridobelamal A and Rhamnazinand and other key pharmacodynamic molecules, as well as AKT1, STAT3, HRAS and other core targets by network topology analysis. Enrichment analysis results demonstrated that they were mainly involved in biological processes such as peptide serine phosphorylation, protein kinase B signal transduction, peptide serine modification, and pathways including PI3K/AKT signal pathway and Rap1 signal pathway. The results of molecular docking verified the good binding activity of the key pharmacodynamic molecules with the core targets. ② The results of Western blotting showed that the protein expressions of VEGF and MMP9 of Belamcanda chinensis extracts in 8 mg/mL and 16 mg/mL groups were significantly lower than those in the blank control group (P<0.01 or P<0.001). Compared with the blank control group, the early apoptosis rate of Belamcanda chinensis extracts at 8 mg/mL and 16 mg/mL were significantly decreased (P<0.001 or P<0.000 1). qRT-PCR results showed that the mRNA expression levels of VEGF and MMP9 in Belamcanda chinensis extracts at 8 mg/mL and 16 mg/mL were significantly decreased (P<0.001 or P<0.0001). 【Conclusion】 The treatment of glioma with Belamcanda chinensis is the result of multi-component, multi-target and multi-channel interactions. The results of cell experiments confirmed that Belamcanda chinensis extracts can affect the expressions of related target proteins of PI3K/AKT signal pathway and VEGF and MMP9, which verified the results of network pharmacology. The results provide a theoretical basis for the clinical application of Belamcanda chinensis and studies on glioma.
