A network pharmacology and molecular docking study on treatment mechanism of Bacterial Dysentery of Huanglian-Huangqin-Huangbo herb pair
Authors: xu qiaoxin , Wang Xiaojia , Zhong Ning , Wang Yue , Li Zhong , Cai Yanqu 
Published: January 2021

Background: Bacillary dysentery (BD) is one of the most common epidemic infectious diseases. Hundreds of millions of people are infected with BD each year among the world. The patients usually have the following symptoms: abdominal pain, diarrhea, intestinal flora imbalance, etc. Antibiotic are widely used for the treatment in clinical practice. However, due to the overuse of antibiotics, the bacterial resistance is increasingly serious and the medical works are facing with the risk that the antibiotics would lose efficacy. Apart from chemical medicines, traditional Chinese medicines (TCM) are also well accepted for BD treatment, especially in Asian countries. Huanglian-Huangqin-Huangbo herb pair (HHH) is typical and commonly used to treat symptoms such as abdominal pain, diarrhea, and intestinal flora imbalance caused by BD. Also, the HHH has antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, and antidiarrheal effects. In this study, we are committed to ascertain the potential active compounds of HHH and the onset mechanism for the treatment of BD.Methods With the help of the Traditional Chinese Medicine Systems Pharmacology Database and Analysis Platform (Traditional Chinese Medicine Systems Pharmacology Database, TCMSP) and PubChem database to search and screen the chemical components and targets of Coptis, Scutellaria, Phellodendron, the gene names were corrected through the Uniprot database, and used the CTD database, TTD database, GeneCards database and DRUGBANK database to obtain BD-related disease targets. The online drawing platform Bioinformatics was used to analyze the "active compound-disease" intersection target, and utilized Cyoscape 3.7.2 software to construct a visualized Chinese medicine-active compound-target network and protein interaction network in order to screen the potential key active compounds and key targets; GO function analysis and KEGG pathway enrichment analysis of the target were carried out through the Metascape database platform, and Cyoscape 3.7.2 software was used to construct a gene-pathway network to screen potential pathways and their mechanism of action. Molecular docking of the key active compounds of the HHH with the key target of BD. Results A total of 331 potential active compounds were screened for the HHH, among which 87 key active compounds such as quercetin, wogonin, baicalein, β-sitosterol, isofumarine, and tetrahydroberberine can be selected. Act on BD through 34 potential intersection targets such as IL-6, AKT1, PTGS2, TNF, CASP3, VEGFA, etc. GO gene function analysis yielded a total of 20 biological process (BP) items, 7 cell composition (CC) items, and molecular function (MF) items (P<0.01), mainly involving lipopolysaccharide reaction, reactive oxygen metabolism process, cell factor receptor binding, inorganic substance response, membrane raft, cytokine receptor binding and other biological processes. KEGG pathway enrichment analysis identified 14 signaling pathways (P<0.01), mainly related to cancer signaling pathways, IL-17 signaling pathways and other key pathways. The results of molecular docking HHH owed that the core active components such as quercetin, β-sitosterol, wogonin, isofumarole, baicalein and other core active compounds have good binding effects with the core targets of TNF, IL-6, PTGS2, and BCL2 (binding energy <-5 KJ/mol). Conclusion The effect of HHH on the potential key targets of TNF, IL-6, PTGS2 and other potential key targets through quercetin, β-sitosterol and other potential active compounds to regulate IL-17 and other signaling pathways, thereby exerting therapeutic effects on bacteria. The effect of dysentery is in line with the remarkable characteristics of multi-component, multi-target, and multi-channel effect of Chinese medicine compound.