Nelumbinis Plumula has the traditional sedative effect,but its mechanism is unclear. In this study,the relationship between traditional sedative effect and hypnotic effect of Nelumbinis Plumula was taken as the starting point to study the hypnotic mechanism of the major medicinal components in Nelumbinis Plumula by the network pharmacology method. Targets of active Nelumbinis Plumula alkaloids were screened by Swiss Target Prediction server,TCMSP and BATMAN-TCM. Targets of hypnotic drugs approved by FDA were screened from Drug Bank,OMIM,TTD databases. The common targets were screened by GO and KEGG pathways. Cytoscape 3. 7. 1 software was used to construct the network of " active component-target-pathway-disease". The results of network analysis showed that 21 active compounds were associated with 44 targets and 28 pathways. Among them,21 compounds,35 targets and 15 pathways were predicted to be related to sedative hypnosis. Nelumbinis Plumula showed the hypnotic effect by acting on neuroactive ligand-receptor interaction pathway,regulation of actin cytoskeleton pathway,calcium signaling pathway,cholinergic synapse pathway.This study preliminarily revealed the potential active compounds and possible mechanisms of traditional sedative effect of Nelumbinis Plumula,which provided a theoretical basis for further experimental studies on medicinal materials and its mechanisms.
Keywords: Nelumbinis Plumula; alkaloids; network pharmacology; pharmacological mechanism; traditional sedative effect.