Title:Network Pharmacology Study on Herb Pair Bletilla striata-Galla chinensis in the
Treatment of Chronic Skin Ulcers
Volume: 30
Issue: 17
Author(s): Yue Wang, Tengteng Ding and Xing Jiang*
Affiliation:
- School of Nursing, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, China
Keywords:
Chronic skin ulcers, Bletilla striata, Galla chinensis, network pharmacology, molecular docking, traditional Chinese medicine.
Abstract:
Background: Herb pair Bletilla striata-Galla chinensis (BS-GC) is a classic combination of topical
traditional Chinese medicine formulae in the treatment of chronic skin ulcers (CSUs).
Objective: The aim of this study is to explore the effective active ingredients of BS-GC, as well as the core
targets and signal transduction pathways of its action on CSUs.
Methods: The ingredients of BS-GC were obtained from TCMSP and HERB databases. The targets of all active
ingredients were retrieved from the SwissTargetPrediction database. The targets of CSUs were obtained
from OMIM, GeneCards, Drugbank, and DisGeNET databases. A drug-disease target protein-protein interaction
(PPI) network was constructed to select the most core targets, and an herb-ingredient-target network was
built by utilizing Cytoscape 3.7.2. Furthermore, we performed Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia
of Genes and Genomes database (KEGG) analysis and verified the results of network pharmacology through
molecular docking.
Results: A total of 40 active ingredients from the herb pair BS-GC were initially screened, and a total of 528
targets were retrieved. Meanwhile, the total number of CSU targets was 1032. Then, the number of common
targets between BS-GC and CSUs was 107. The 13 core targets of herb pair BS-GC with CSUs were filtered
out according to the PPI network, including AKT1, TNF, EGFR, BCL2, HIF1A, MMP-9, etc. The 5 main
core active ingredients were 1-(4-Hydroxybenzyl)-2-methoxy-9,10-dihydrophenanthrene-4,7-diol, 1-(4-
Hydroxybenzyl)-4-methoxy-9,10-dihydrophenanthrene-2,7-diol, physcion, dihydromyricetin, and myricetin.
The main biological processes were inflammation, oxidative stress, and immune response, involving the
AGE-RAGE signaling pathway in diabetic complications, HIF-1 signaling pathway, NF-κB signaling pathway,
and calcium signaling pathway. Molecular docking results showed good binding activity between the 5
main core active ingredients and 13 core targets.
Conclusion: This study predicted the core targets and signal transduction pathways in the treatment of CSUs
to provide a reference for further molecular mechanism research.
