Network Pharmacology-Based Study on the Mechanism of Pinellia ternata in Asthma Treatment

Yanmin Lyu; Xiangjing Chen; Qing Xia; Shanshan Zhang; Chengfang Yao

doi:10.1155/2020/9732626

Network Pharmacology-Based Study on the Mechanism of Pinellia ternata in Asthma Treatment

Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2020 Oct 20:2020:9732626. doi: 10.1155/2020/9732626. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Yanmin Lyu¹, Xiangjing Chen², Qing Xia³, Shanshan Zhang³, Chengfang Yao¹

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Basic Medicine, Shandong First Medical University (Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences), 18877 Jingshi Rd, Jinan 250062, Shandong, China.
² The First Clinical Medical College, Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jinan 250000, Shandong, China.
³ Biology Institute, Qilu University of Technology & Shandong Academy of Sciences, Jinan 250014, Shandong, China.

Abstract

Background: Pinellia ternata (PT), a medicinal plant, has had an extensive application in the treatment of asthma in China, whereas its underlying pharmacological mechanisms remain unclear.

Methods: Firstly, a network pharmacology method was adopted to collect activated components of PT from Traditional Chinese Medicine Systems Pharmacology Database and Analysis Platform (TCMSP). Targets of PT were assessed by exploiting the PharmMapper website; asthma-related targets were collected from the OMIM website, and target-target interaction networks were built. Secondly, critical nodes exhibiting high possibility were identified as the hub nodes in the network, which were employed to conduct Gene Ontology (GO) comment analysis and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) signaling pathway enrichment analysis. Finally, the tissue expression profiles of key candidate genes were identified by the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database, and the therapeutic effect of PT was verified by an animal experiment.

Results: 57 achievable targets of PT on asthma were confirmed as hub nodes through using the network pharmacology method. As revealed from the KEGG enrichment analysis, the signaling pathways were notably enriched in pathways of the T-cell receptor signaling pathway, JAK-STAT signaling pathway, and cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction. The expression profiles of candidate genes including Mmp2, Nr3c1, il-10, il-4, il-13, il-17a, il-2, tlr4, tlr9, ccl2, csf2, and vefgα were identified. Moreover, according to transcriptome RNA sequencing data from lung tissues of allergic mice compared to normal mice, the mRNA level of Mmp2 and il-4 was upregulated (P < 0.001). In animal experiments, PT could alleviate the allergic response of mice by inhibiting the activation of T-helper type 2 (TH2) cells and the expression of Mmp2 and il-4.

Conclusions: Our study provides candidate genes that may be either used for future studies related to diagnosis/prognosis or as targets for asthma management. Besides, animal experiments showed that PT could treat asthma by regulating the expression of Mmp2 and il-4.