Network Pharmacology Strategy to Investigate the Pharmacological Mechanism of HuangQiXiXin Decoction on Cough Variant Asthma and Evidence-Based Medicine Approach Validation

Qingqing Xia; Mingtao Liu; Hui Li; Lijun Tian; Jia Qi; Yufeng Zhang

doi:10.1155/2020/3829092

Network Pharmacology Strategy to Investigate the Pharmacological Mechanism of HuangQiXiXin Decoction on Cough Variant Asthma and Evidence-Based Medicine Approach Validation

Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2020 Oct 30:2020:3829092. doi: 10.1155/2020/3829092. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Qingqing Xia¹, Mingtao Liu², Hui Li², Lijun Tian³, Jia Qi⁴, Yufeng Zhang¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Respiratory Medicine, Jiangyin Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jiangyin Hospital Affiliated to Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Jiangyin, Jiangsu 214400, China.
² Department of Respiratory Medicine, Binzhou People's Hospital, Binzhou, Shandong 256610, China.
³ Department of Critical Care Medicine, Nantong Third People's Hospital, Nantong University, Nantong, Jiangsu 226001, China.
⁴ Department of Pharmacy, Xin Hua Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200092, China.

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the pharmacological mechanism of HuangQiXiXin decoction (HQXXD) on cough variant asthma (CVA) and validate the clinical curative effect.

Methods: The active compounds and target genes of HQXXD were searched using TCMSP. CVA-related target genes were obtained using the GeneCards database. The active target genes of HQXXD were compared with the CVA-related target genes to identify candidate target genes of HQXXD acting on CVA. A medicine-compound-target network was constructed using Cytoscape 3.6.0 software, and a protein-protein interaction (PPI) network was constructed using the STRING database. Gene ontology (GO) function enrichment and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis were performed using RGUI3.6.1 and Cytoscape 3.6.0. We searched the main database for randomized controlled trials of HQXXD for CVA. We assessed the quality of the included studies using the Cochrane Reviewers' Handbook. A meta-analysis of the clinical curative effect of HQXXD for CVA was conducted using the Cochrane Collaboration's RevMan 5.3 software.

Results: We screened out 48 active compounds and 217 active target genes of HQXXD from TCMSP. The 217 active target genes of HQXXD were compared with the 1481 CVA-related target genes, and 132 candidate target genes for HQXXD acting on CVA were identified. The medicine-compound-target network and PPI network were constructed, and the key compounds and key targets were selected. GO function enrichment and KEGG pathway enrichment analysis were performed. Meta-analysis showed that the total effective rate of the clinical curative effect was significantly higher in the experimental group than the control group.

Conclusion: The pharmacological mechanism of HQXXD acting on CVA has been further determined, and the clinical curative effect of HQXXD on CVA is remarkable.