A Network Pharmacology Approach to Explore the Mechanisms of Qishen Granules in Heart Failure

Abstract

Background: This study aimed to investigate the intrinsic mechanisms of Qishen granules (QSG) in the treatment of HF, and to provide new evidence and insights for its clinical application. Material/Methods: Information on QSG ingredients was collected from Traditional Chinese medicine systems pharmacology (TCMSP), TCM@Taiwan, TCMID, and Batman, and input into SwissTargetPrediction to identify the compound targets. HF-related targets were detected from Therapeutic Target Database (TTD), Disgenet-Gene, Drugbank database, and Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) database. The overlap targets of QSG and HF were identified for pathway enrichment analysis by utilizing the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analysis. The protein-protein interaction (PPI) network of QSG-HF was constructed, following by the generation of core targets, construction of core modules, and KEGG analysis of the core functional modules. Results: There were 1909 potential targets predicted from the 243 bioactive compounds in QSG which shared 129 common targets with HF-related targets. KEGG pathway analysis of common targets indicated that QSG could regulated 23 representative pathways. In the QSG-HF PPI network analysis, 10 key targets were identified, including EDN1, AGT, CREB1, ACE, CXCR4, ADRBK1, AGTR1, BDKRB1, ADRB2, and F2. Further cluster and enrichment analysis suggested that neuroactive ligand-receptor interaction, cGMP-PKG signaling pathway, renin secretion, vascular smooth muscle contraction, and the renin-angiotensin system might be core pathways of QSG for HF. Conclusions: Our study elucidated the possible mechanisms of QSG from a systemic and holistic perspective. The key targets and pathways will provide new insights for further research on the pharmacological mechanism of QSG.

Efficacy and safety of Qishen granules for chronic heart failure

“…Since QSG used to be published under the name of Yixin Jiedu (YXJD), Qishen Keli (QSKL), and Qishen Yiqi (QSYQ). [ 17 ] The full search strategy for PubMed are listed below and similar search strategies will be used for other electronic databases: #1. (((Qishen granules [Title/Abstract]) OR QSG[Title/Abstract]) OR traditional Chinese medicine [Title/Abstract]).…”

Network Pharmacology Approach to Explore the Potential Mechanisms of Jieduan‐Niwan Formula Treating Acute‐on‐Chronic Liver Failure

“…DL, which helps in optimizing pharmacokinetics and drug properties, is used to assess the physicochemical similarity of a compound to a known drug in drug design [ 17 ]. Based on the relevant published literature, the ingredients with OB ≥ 30% and DL ≥ 0.18 were screened as bioactive ingredients [ 18 ]. Moreover, some other bioactive ingredients with actual targets but in low OB or DL were supplemented according to relevant literature reports [ 19 , 20 ].…”

Investigating the multi-target pharmacological mechanism of danhong injection acting on unstable angina by combined network pharmacology and molecular docking

“…We searched the SuperPred [26] (http://prediction.charite.de/), SwissTargetPrediction [27] (http://www.swisstargetprediction.ch/) and BATMAN-TCM [28] (http:// bionet.ncpsb.org/batman-tcm/) for potential targets related to DHI compounds. What's more, the UniProt [29] (http://www.uniprot.org/) was utilized to convert the protein name of the DHI bioactive ingredients to the gene names. The search results were filtered to retain only studies conducted on "Homo sapiens (Human)" so that the names can be standardized and data duplicates deleted.…”