Exploring the mechanism of action of herbal compounding in the treatment of myasthenia gravis based on network pharmacology

Biotechnol Genet Eng Rev. 2023 Mar 23:1-16. doi: 10.1080/02648725.2023.2193048. Online ahead of print.

Abstract

Myasthenia gravis is a major disease in the context of an ageing society, and the discovery of effective herbal compound and herbal active ingredients is a highly promising direction for the treatment of myasthenia gravis. In this study, we selected shujiao, dried ginger and ginseng from the compound ingredients through a network pathology approach. The three ingredients were used to obtain drug targets in Traditional Chinese Medicine Systems Pharmacology (TCMSP), HERB and BATMAN-TCM data and intersected with the disease targets of myasthenia gravis. The resulting regulatory network maps were then used to identify core genes through the String database, and finally the core genes were molecularly aligned with the corresponding active ingredients using Autodock vina software. The 'herbal-component-target' regulatory network of the Chinese herbal formulae was constructed, which is important for finding the potential molecular mechanism for the treatment of myasthenia gravis. It will provide a theoretical basis for the therapeutic and clinical research of myasthenia gravis.

Keywords: Sarcopenia; dried ginger; ginseng; molecular docking; shujiao.