Open AccessNetwork Pharmacology-based Investigation of the Underlying Mechanism of Panax notoginseng Treatment of Diabetic Retinopathy
Author(s) -
Chunli Piao,
Zheyu Sun,
De Jin,
Han Wang,
Xuemin Wu,
Naiwen Zhang,
Fengmei Lian,
Xiaolin Tong
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
combinatorial chemistry and high throughput screening
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.292
H-Index - 64
eISSN - 1875-5402
pISSN - 1386-2073
DOI - 10.2174/1386207323666200305093709
Subject(s) - panax notoginseng , mechanism (biology) , traditional chinese medicine , diabetic retinopathy , traditional medicine , medicine , pharmacology , computational biology , bioinformatics , biology , diabetes mellitus , alternative medicine , philosophy , epistemology , pathology , endocrinology
Background: Panax notoginseng, a Chinese herbal medicine, has been widely used totreat vascular diseases. Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is one of the complications of diabeticmicroangiopathy. According to recent studies, the application of Panax notoginseng extract andrelated Chinese patent medicine preparations can significantly improve DR. However, thepharmacological mechanisms remain unclear. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to decipherthe potential mechanism of Panax notoginseng treatment of DR using network pharmacology. Methods: We evaluated and screened the active compounds of Panax notoginseng using theTraditional Chinese Medicine Systems Pharmacology database and collected potential targets ofthe compounds by target fishing. A multi-source database was also used to organize targets of DR.The potential targets as the treatment of DR with Panax notoginseng were then obtained bymatching the compound targets with the DR targets. Using protein-protein interaction networksand topological analysis, interactions between potential targets were identified. In addition, we alsoperformed gene ontology-biological process and pathway enrichment analysis for the potentialtargets by using the Biological Information Annotation Database. Results: Eight active ingredients of Panax notoginseng and 31 potential targets for the treatment ofDR were identified. The screening and enrichment analysis revealed that the treatment of DR usingPanax notoginseng primarily involved 28 biological processes and 10 related pathways. Furtheranalyses indicated that angiogenesis, inflammatory reactions, and apoptosis may be the mainprocesses involved in the treatment of DR with Panax notoginseng. In addition, we determined thatthe mechanism of intervention of Panax notoginseng in treating DR may involve five core targets,VEGFA, MMP-9, MMP-2, FGF2, and COX-2. Conclusion: Panax notoginseng may treat diabetic retinopathy through the mechanism of networkpharmacological analysis. The underlying molecular mechanisms were closely related to theintervention of angiogenesis, inflammation, and apoptosis with VEGFA, MMP-9, MMP-2, FGF2,and COX-2 being possible targets.