Deciphering Pharmacological Mechanism of Buyang Huanwu Decoction for Spinal Cord Injury by Network Pharmacology Approach

Zhencheng Xiong; Feng Yang; Wenhao Li; Xiangsheng Tang; Haoni Ma; Ping Yi

doi:10.1155/2021/9921534

Deciphering Pharmacological Mechanism of Buyang Huanwu Decoction for Spinal Cord Injury by Network Pharmacology Approach

Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2021 Apr 22:2021:9921534. doi: 10.1155/2021/9921534. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Zhencheng Xiong¹, Feng Yang¹, Wenhao Li^{1

2}, Xiangsheng Tang¹, Haoni Ma¹, Ping Yi¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Spine Surgery, China-Japan Friendship Hospital, Beijing 100029, China.
² Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing 100029, China.

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the mechanism of action of the Chinese herbal formula Buyang Huanwu Decoction (BYHWD), which is commonly used to treat nerve injuries, in the treatment of spinal cord injury (SCI) using a network pharmacology method.

Methods: BYHWD-related targets were obtained by mining the TCMSP and BATMAN-TCM databases, and SCI-related targets were obtained by mining the DisGeNET, TTD, CTD, GeneCards, and MalaCards databases. The overlapping targets of the abovementioned targets may be potential therapeutic targets for BYHWD anti-SCI. Subsequently, we performed protein-protein interaction (PPI) analysis, screened the hub genes using Cytoscape software, performed Gene Ontology (GO) annotation and KEGG pathway enrichment analysis, and finally achieved molecular docking between the hub proteins and key active compounds.

Results: The 189 potential therapeutic targets for BYHWD anti-SCI were overlapping targets of 744 BYHWD-related targets and 923 SCI-related targets. The top 10 genes obtained subsequently included AKT1, IL6, MAPK1, TNF, TP53, VEGFA, CASP3, ALB, MAPK8, and JUN. Fifteen signaling pathways were also screened out after enrichment analysis and literature search. The results of molecular docking of key active compounds and hub target proteins showed a good binding affinity for both.

Conclusion: This study shows that BYHWD anti-SCI is characterized by a multicomponent, multitarget, and multipathway synergy and provides new insights to explore the specific mechanisms of BYHWD against SCI.