Utilizing Network Pharmacology to Explore the Possible Mechanism of CoptidisRhizoma in Kawasaki Disease

Abstract

Background: Kawasaki disease (KD) isan acute self-limiting systemic vasculitis.In this study, a randomized controlled trial regarding berberine (main component of CoptidisRhizoma) function in treating KD was carried out and possible pharmacological mechanisms of CoptidisRhizoma (CR) on Kawasaki disease therapy were investigated using an integrated network pharmacology approach.Results: The BBR group was able to reduce the values of CRP, NLR and PLR significantly. Also, the effect of BBR improved the resistance rate of intravenous injection of gamma globulin significantly. In total, 9 compounds and 369 relative drug targets were collected from TCMSP, SWISS, SEA and STITCH database and 624 KD target genes were collected in DisGeNET, DrugBank and GeneCards database. The network analysis revealed that 41 targets might be the therapeutic targets of CR on KD, among which ATK1, RELA, SRC, CASP3 and MTOR ranked in top 5. Gene ontology enrichment analysis revealed that the reaction to bacteria-derived molecules and to lipopolysaccharide and the apoptosis process were the key biological procedures for CR treating KD. The KEGG pathway enrichment analysis pointed out that the four signaling pathways closely related to CR treating KD including age-rage signaling pathway, fluid shear stress and atherosclerosis, TNF signaling pathway and Toll-like receptor signaling pathway in diabetic complications.Conclusion: We concluded that the introduction of routine treatment combined with BBR in treating KD has advantages than routine treatment and can be considered as a preferred approach in KD. Network pharmacology showed that CR exerted the effect of prevention KD by regulating multi-targets and multi-components.