Anticancer Activity of Erianin: Cancer-Specific Target Prediction Based on Network Pharmacology

Lili Yan; Zhen Zhang; Yanfen Liu; Shuyi Ren; Zhiyu Zhu; Lu Wei; Jiao Feng; Ting Duan; Xueni Sun; Tian Xie; Xinbing Sui

doi:10.3389/fmolb.2022.862932

Anticancer Activity of Erianin: Cancer-Specific Target Prediction Based on Network Pharmacology

Front Mol Biosci. 2022 Mar 17:9:862932. doi: 10.3389/fmolb.2022.862932. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Lili Yan^{1

2}, Zhen Zhang³, Yanfen Liu^{1

2}, Shuyi Ren^{1

2}, Zhiyu Zhu^{1

2}, Lu Wei^{1

2}, Jiao Feng^{1

2}, Ting Duan^{1

2}, Xueni Sun^{1

2}, Tian Xie^{1

2}, Xinbing Sui^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ School of Pharmacy, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China.
² Key Laboratory of Elemene Class Anti-Cancer Chinese Medicines, Engineering Laboratory of Development and Application of Traditional Chinese Medicines, Collaborative Innovation Center of Traditional Chinese Medicines of Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China.
³ Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Hangzhou Orthopedic Institute, Affiliated Hangzhou First People's Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China.

Abstract

Erianin is a major bisbenzyl compound extracted from Dendrobium chrysotoxum Lindl., an important traditional Chinese herb. In recent years, a growing body of evidence has proved the potential therapeutic effects of erianin on various cancers, including hepatoma, melanoma, non-small-cell lung carcinoma, myelogenous leukemia, breast cancer, and osteosarcoma. Especially, the pharmacological activities of erianin, such as antioxidant and anticancer activity, have been frequently demonstrated by plenty of studies. In this study, we firstly conducted a systematic review on reported anticancer activity of erianin. All updated valuable information regarding the underlying action mechanisms of erianin in specific cancer was recorded and summarized in this paper. Most importantly, based on the molecular structure of erianin, its potential molecular targets were analyzed and predicted by means of the SwissTargetPrediction online server (http://www.swisstargetprediction.ch). In the meantime, the potential therapeutic targets of 10 types of cancers in which erianin has been proved to have anticancer effects were also predicted via the Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) database (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/omim). The overlapping targets may serve as valuable target candidates through which erianin exerts its anticancer activity. The clinical value of those targets was subsequently evaluated by analyzing their prognostic role in specific cancer using Kaplan-Meier plotter (http://Kmplot.com/analysis/) and Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis (GEPIA) (http://gepia.cancer-pku.cn/). To better assess and verify the binding ability of erianin with its potential targets, molecular flexible docking was performed using Discovery Studio (DS). The valuable targets obtained from the above analysis and verification were further mapped to the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway using the Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery (DAVID) (http://david.abcc.ncifcrf.gov/) to explore the possible signaling pathways disturbed/regulated by erianin. Furthermore, the in silico prediction of absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and toxicity (ADMET) properties of erianin was also performed and provided in this paper. Overall, in this study, we aimed at 1) collecting all experiment-based important information regarding the anticancer effect and pharmacological mechanism of erianin, 2) providing the predicted therapeutic targets and signaling pathways that erianin might act on in cancers, and 3) especially providing in silico ADMET properties of erianin.

Keywords: ADMET; anticancer activity; erianin; molecular docking; target prediction.