Title:Evaluation of the Mechanism of Action of Rosemary Volatile Oil in the
Treatment of Alzheimer's Disease Using Gas Chromatography -mass
Spectrometry Analysis and Network Pharmacology
Volume: 26
Issue: 13
Author(s): Peijie Zhou, Xuan Wang, Yijun Zhao, Xinhua She, Yanzhuo Jia, Wenfei Wang, Jia Li and Xiangning Luo*
Affiliation:
- Department of Urological Surgery, Shaanxi University of Chinese Medicine Affiliated Hospital, Xianyang 712000, China
Keywords:
Network pharmacology, rosemary volatile oil, Alzheimer's disease, neurodegenerative disease, neurofibrillary tangles, chronic inflammation.
Abstract:
Objective: This study aimed to investigate the active components and mechanism of action
of rosemary volatile oil for treating Alzheimer's disease (AD) using network pharmacology.
Methods: We obtained the constituents of the rosemary volatile oil by searching Chinese herbal
systemic pharmacological databases and analytical platforms and constructed the constituent-target
networks by predicting and screening the action targets of the rosemary volatile oil constituents using
SwissTargetPrediction, metaTarFisher, and Pubchem. We obtained the AD-related targets using
the Genecards, OMIM, and DisGeNET databases and constructed the protein-protein interaction
networks (PPI) using the STRING database in Venny 2.1.0 graph to identify the cross-targets
by screening the core-acting targets. Cytoscape 3.8.2 software was used to construct a componenttarget-
pathway network to screen the potential active components of the rosemary volatile oil for
the treatment of AD and predict the mechanism of action of the rosemary volatile oil for the treatment
of AD in combination with existing pharmacological studies. We performed a gene ontology
(GO) biological process and a Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment
analysis of the targets of the rosemary volatile oil for the treatment of AD using R language and
molecular docking using Discovery Studio 4.0 software to validate their biological activities.
Results: A network constructed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis
identified 26 potentially active ingredients in the rosemary volatile oil. We retrieved a total of
10762 AD targets from Genecards and other databases. Our GO enrichment analysis yielded 39 entries
(P < 0.05), including 14 entries for biological processes, five entries for cellular composition,
and 20 entries for molecular function. A total of 14 entries (P < 0.05) were then enriched in the
KEGG pathway that primarily involved the IL-17 signaling pathway and the AGE-RAGE pathway.
Conclusion: The active components of rosemary volatile oil had good inhibition of the inflammatory
response. This study provides a reference and guidance for the in-depth study on rosemary
volatile oil for the treatment of AD.