Title:Identification of Drug Targets and Agents Associated with Ferroptosis-related
Osteoporosis through Integrated Network Pharmacology and Molecular
Docking Technology
Volume: 30
Issue: 14
Author(s): Kailun Huo, Yiqian Yang, Tieyi Yang, Weiwei Zhang*Jin Shao*
Affiliation:
- Department
of Urology, Ren Ji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200127, China
- Department of Orthopedics, Shanghai Pudong New Area Gongli Hospital, Shanghai 200135, China
- School
of Gongli Hospital Medical Technology, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China
Keywords:
Osteoporosis, ferroptosis, resveratrol, bioinformatics, network pharmacology, molecular docking.
Abstract:
Background: Osteoporosis is a systemic bone disease characterized by progressive reduction of
bone mineral density and degradation of trabecular bone microstructure. Iron metabolism plays an important
role in bone; its imbalance leads to abnormal lipid oxidation in cells, hence ferroptosis. In osteoporosis, however,
the exact mechanism of ferroptosis has not been fully elucidated.
Objective: The main objective of this project was to identify potential drug target proteins and agents for the
treatment of ferroptosis-related osteoporosis.
Methods: In the current study, we investigated the differences in gene expression of bone marrow mesenchymal
stem cells between osteoporosis patients and normal individuals using bioinformatics methods to obtain
ferroptosis-related genes. We could predict their protein structure based on the artificial intelligence database
of AlphaFold, and their target drugs and binding sites with the network pharmacology and molecular docking
technology.
Results: We identified five genes that were highly associated with osteoporosis, such as TP53, EGFR, TGFB1,
SOX2 and MAPK14, which, we believe, can be taken as the potential markers and targets for the diagnosis
and treatment of osteoporosis. Furthermore, we observed that these five genes were highly targeted by
resveratrol to exert a therapeutic effect on ferroptosis-related osteoporosis.
Conclusion: We examined the relationship between ferroptosis and osteoporosis based on bioinformatics and
network pharmacology, presenting a promising direction to the pursuit of the exact molecular mechanism of
osteoporosis so that a new target can be discovered for the treatment of osteoporosis.
