Title:Underlying Mechanism of Traditional Herbal Formula Chuang-Ling-Ye in
the Treatment of Diabetic Foot Ulcer through Network Pharmacology and
Molecular Docking
Volume: 30
Issue: 6
Author(s): Jinyuan Geng, Guowei Zhou, Song Guo, Chaoqun Ma and Jiangfeng Ma*
Affiliation:
- State Key Laboratory of Materials-Oriented Chemical Engineering, College of Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Engineering,
Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing 211800, P.R. China
Keywords:
Traditional herbal formula, Chuang-Ling-Ye, diabetic foot ulcer, network pharmacology, molecular docking, gene ontology.
Abstract:
Background: Chuang-Ling-Ye (CLY) has been clinically proven to be an effective Chinese
medicine for the treatment of diabetic foot ulcers (DFU).
Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the possible mechanism of CLY in relation to DFU using network
pharmacology and molecular docking.
Materials and Methods: Firstly, relevant targets of CLY against DFU were obtained from TCMSP, Swiss Target
Prediction database and GEO database. Then, topological analysis was employed by Cytoscape to screen
the top 6 core active ingredients and the top 8 hub targets. Furthermore, the OmicShare Tools were applied for
gene ontology (GO) functional enrichment analysis and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG)
signaling pathway enrichment analysis. Finally, the results of network pharmacology were verified by molecular
docking method.
Results: CLY has 61 active compounds and 361 targets after de-duplication, and the top 8 hub targets were
EGFR, TP53, CCND1, IL-1B, CREBBP, AR, PTGS2 and PGR. GO enrichment analysis is mainly related to
signal transducer activity, receptor activity, and molecular transducer activity. KEGG pathway analysis indicated
that these shared targets were primarily focused on AGE-RAGE signaling pathway in diabetic complications,
HIF-1 signaling pathway, IL-17 signaling pathway, and JAK-STAT signaling pathway. Molecular docking
results showed that physciondiglucoside, 2-cinnamoyl-glucose and kinobeon A were well bound with
EGFR, IL-1B, AR and PTGS2.
Conclusion: This study demonstrated that CLY has anti-oxidative stress and anti-inflammatory effects in the
treatment of DFU through various constituents, multiple targets, and multiple pathways, which provides a valuable
point of reference for future investigations on CLY.