Unraveling the action mechanism of polygonum cuspidatum by a network pharmacology approach.

Unraveling the action mechanism of polygonum cuspidatum by a network pharmacology approach. Am J Transl Res. 2019;11(11):6790-6811 Authors: Pan B, Shi X, Ding T, Liu L Abstract As a popular Chinese herbal medicine (CHM), polygonum cuspidatum is widely used to treat various diseases in China. However, its biological function and action mechanism have yet to be systematically explored. In the present study, we first identified 14 potential active ingredients of polygonum cuspidatum using the TCMSP server and then conducted an in silico target prediction for these ingredients using PharmMapper. The subsequent KEGG pathway enrichment analysis of the 57 identified potential targets revealed that they were closely associated with cancer and gynecological disorders. Furthermore, a protein-protein interaction network of these targets was constructed using STRING and Cytoscape, through which 11 core targets were excavated according to degree, a key topological parameter. Meanwhile, we developed a novel formula, in which the "R value" is determined by average shortest path length and closeness centrality, two other key topological parameters, to evaluate the reliability of these predicted core targets. Intriguingly, among the top 10 core targets excavated using this new formula, 7 overlapped with the former 11 core targets, showing a good consistency in these core targets between the different prediction algorithms. Next, 7 ingredients were id...
Source: American Journal of Translational Research - Category: Research Tags: Am J Transl Res Source Type: research