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. 2020 Jan 1:26:e918520.
doi: 10.12659/MSM.918520.

Network Pharmacology-Based Study on the Molecular Biological Mechanism of Action for Compound Kushen Injection in Anti-Cancer Effect

Ruirong He  1 , Shuya Ou  1 , Shichun Chen  1 , Shaobo Ding  1
Affiliations

Network Pharmacology-Based Study on the Molecular Biological Mechanism of Action for Compound Kushen Injection in Anti-Cancer Effect

Ruirong He et al. Med Sci Monit. .

Abstract

BACKGROUND Compound Kushen injection (CKI) is a traditional Chinese medicine preparation for clinical treatment of cancer pain or treatment of various types of solid tumors. The purpose of this study was to identify the main active compounds from CKI and to investigate its anti-cancer mechanisms via drug target biological network pharmacology construction and prediction. MATERIAL AND METHODS Constituents of CKI were retrieved from Traditional Chinese Medicine Systems Pharmacology (TCMSP) database. Disease targets were collected in the Human Gene (Gene Cards) and Human Mendelian Inheritance (OMIM) databases. "Ingredients-protein targets-pathway" networks were constructed using Cytoscape. STRING database platform to construct enrichment of protein-protein interactions (PPI), related diseases and pathways network. Gene Ontology (GO) biological functions and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway of were performed to investigate by using Bioconductor tool for analysis. RESULTS The results indicated that 60 constituents of absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion (ADME) filtration resulted in 33 constituents exhibiting significant correlations with anti-cancer and CKI may target 113 proteins, including IL6, EGFR, CASP3, VEGFA, MYC, and ESR1. GO and KEGG enrichment analysis results show that 129 biological processes and 93 signal pathways associated with cancer. It mainly involves cancers such as prostate cancer, bladder cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma, colorectal cancer, breast cancer, etc. Active ingredients might also induce apoptosis in cancer cells via the p53 and PI3K-Akt signaling pathway mechanism. CONCLUSIONS This study was based on pharmacological networks results for the prediction of the multi-constituent, multi-target, and multi-pathway mechanisms of CKI, which might be a promising potential therapeutic and prevention candidate for anti-cancer. However, based on computer data mining and analysis, this study still needs to be further verified by in vivo/in vitro experiments, and the safety of CKI needs to be evaluated.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest

None.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Workflow of the network pharmacology analysis of compound Kushen injection (CKI) constituents against cancer targets.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Drug-component target network of active ingredients of compound Kushen injection (CKI).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Anti-cancer protein target interaction network (PPI).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Protein interaction relationship histogram of compound Kushen injection (CKI).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Enrichment analysis of Gene Ontology (GO) biological process of anti-cancer targets gene from active ingredients of compound Kushen injection (CKI).
Figure 6
Figure 6
Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway which related to anti-cancer for targets of compound Kushen injection (CKI).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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