This paper aims to explore active components and mechanism of Scutellariae Radix(SR)-Phellodendri Chinensis Cortex(PCC) drug pair in treatment of psoriasis by network pharmacology and molecular docking. Specifically, the chemical components of SR and PCC were retrieved from literature and TCMSP, as well as targets of these components from PharmMapper and UniProt, and the targets related to psoriasis from OMIM, TTD, PharmGkb, and DrugBank. Then the chemical component-medicinal target, protein-protein interaction(PPI), and chemical component-psoriasis target networks were constructed by Cytoscape. Gene ontology(GO) term enrichment analysis and Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes(KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis were performed based on Metascape. Finally, molecular docking of the chemical components(high degree) with core therapeutic targets was carried out by AutoDock vina. The results showed 88 compounds of SR and PCC(including baicalin, wogonoside, berberine and phellodendrine) and 30 targets of the pair in the treatment of psoriasis. The 30 targets mainly involved the biological processes such as neutrophil mediated immunity(GO: 0002446) and T cell activation(GO: 0042110), and the signaling pathways such as metabolism of xenobiotics by cytochrome P450(hsa00980), apoptosis(hsa04210), and PI3 K-Akt signaling pathway(hsa04151). The results of molecular docking demonstrated that the main active components can spontaneously bind to the targets and the binding energy of 46 components with epidermal growth factor receptor(EGFR) was less than-8 kcal·mol~(-1). According to the PPI analysis, EGFR may be a key target for the treatment of psoriasis. Active components such as baicalin and berberine had high binding affinity with EGFR. This study preliminarily revealed the multi-component, multi-target and multi-pathway mechanism of SR-PCC drug pair in the treatment of psoriasis, which provided theoretical basis for the research on the mechanism of the drug pair in the treatment of psoriasis.
Keywords: Phellodendri Chinensis Cortex; Scutellariae Radix; molecular docking; network pharmacology; psoriasis.