Network pharmacology-based study on the mechanism of action for herbal medicines in Alzheimer treatment

Jiansong Fang; Ling Wang; Tian Wu; Cong Yang; Li Gao; Haobin Cai; Junhui Liu; Shuhuan Fang; Yunbo Chen; Wen Tan; Qi Wang

doi:10.1016/j.jep.2016.11.034

Network pharmacology-based study on the mechanism of action for herbal medicines in Alzheimer treatment

J Ethnopharmacol. 2017 Jan 20:196:281-292. doi: 10.1016/j.jep.2016.11.034. Epub 2016 Nov 23.

Authors

Jiansong Fang¹, Ling Wang², Tian Wu¹, Cong Yang¹, Li Gao³, Haobin Cai¹, Junhui Liu⁴, Shuhuan Fang¹, Yunbo Chen¹, Wen Tan⁵, Qi Wang⁶

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Clinical Pharmacology, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou 510405, China; Department of Encephalopathy, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou 510120, China.
² Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Fermentation and Enzyme Engineering, Pre-Incubator for Innovative Drugs & Medicine, School of Bioscience and Bioengineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China.
³ Modern Research Center for Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanxi University, Taiyuan 030006, China.
⁴ Guangxi University of Chinese Medicine, Nanning 530001, China.
⁵ Institute of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China. Electronic address: went@scut.edu.cn.
⁶ Institute of Clinical Pharmacology, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou 510405, China; Department of Encephalopathy, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou 510120, China. Electronic address: wqitcm@qq.com.

PMID: 27888133
DOI: 10.1016/j.jep.2016.11.034

Abstract

Ethnopharmacological relevance: Alzheimer's disease (AD), as the most common type of dementia, has brought a heavy economic burden to healthcare system around the world. However, currently there is still lack of effective treatment for AD patients. Herbal medicines, featured as multiple herbs, ingredients and targets, have accumulated a great deal of valuable experience in treating AD although the exact molecular mechanisms are still unclear.

Materials and methods: In this investigation, we proposed a network pharmacology-based method, which combined large-scale text-mining, drug-likeness filtering, target prediction and network analysis to decipher the mechanisms of action for the most widely studied medicinal herbs in AD treatment.

Results: The text mining of PubMed resulted in 10 herbs exhibiting significant correlations with AD. Subsequently, after drug-likeness filtering, 1016 compounds were remaining for 10 herbs, followed by structure clustering to sum up chemical scaffolds of herb ingredients. Based on target prediction results performed by our in-house protocol named AlzhCPI, compound-target (C-T) and target-pathway (T-P) networks were constructed to decipher the mechanism of action for anti-AD herbs.

Conclusions: Overall, this approach provided a novel strategy to explore the mechanisms of herbal medicine from a holistic perspective.

Keywords: Alzheimer; Berberine (PubChem CID: 2353); Crocin (PubChem CID: 5281233); Cryptotanshinone (PubChem CID: 160254); Curcumin (PubChem CID: 969516); Ginsenoside Rd (PubChem CID: 11679800); Ginsenoside Rg1 (PubChem CID: 441923); Ginsenoside Rg2 (PubChem CID: 75412551); Ginsenoside Rg3 (PubChem CID: 9918693); Ginsenoside Rg5 (PubChem CID: 44416768); Herbal medicines; Network pharmacology; Salvianolic acid A (PubChem CID: 5281793); Salvianolic acid B (PubChem CID: 11629084); Tanshinone IIA (PubChem CID: 164676); Target prediction; Tenuifolin (PubChem CID: 21588226); kaempferol (PubChem CID: 5280863); quercetin (PubChem CID: 5280343).

MeSH terms

Alzheimer Disease / drug therapy*
Alzheimer Disease / metabolism
Animals
Humans
Phytotherapy*
Plant Preparations / pharmacology*
Plant Preparations / therapeutic use
Plants, Medicinal

Substances

Plant Preparations