Xiong Chen*, Conghui Wang, Huai Zhang, Dong Yang, Long Pan, Jin Xie, Yanhui Zhou, Qiang Sun, Junti LU, Lizhi Zhou, Xi Wang, Hongmei Chen, Lizhu LIU and Chunqi Ai
To explore the molecular mechanism of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) based on network pharmacology, transcriptomics and molecular docking technology. Databases including TCMSP, SwissTarget Prediction, OMIM, Gene Cards, Drug bank, String, Metascape were used to search the active components and target proteins of feilike capsule, the target proteins shared with COPD were screened out, and the information of signal pathways and biological functions involved by these target proteins were obtained. 114 active ingredients of Feilike Capsule were obtained, including 214 potential targets for treating COPD. The protein interaction network was obtained through String database and Cytoscape software, and 14 potential core targets were obtained by network topology analysis, which were AKT1, TNF, SRC, MMP9, PTGS2, CASP3, EGFR, TP53, STAT3, MAPK3, GAPDH, MAPK1, IL2 and STAT1. Go function enrichment analysis and KEGG pathway enrichment analysis were carried out on the potential targets of Feilike Capsule in treating COPD by using Metascape database, and important biological processes, cell composition, molecular functions and signal pathways related to the targets were screened by R language. The results showed that the GO biological process was related to cellular response to nitrogen compound and inflammatory response the GO cell composition was related to perinuclear region of cytoplast, membrane raft and membrane micro-domain and the GO molecular function was related to protein kinase activity, phosphotransfer activity, alcohol group as acceptor, etc. In addition, the main signal pathways involved were PIK3 - Akt signal pathway, HIF - 1 signal pathway and MAPK signal pathway. Meanwhile, the gene chip data set related to COPD in GEO database was analyzed using transcriptome method, and the differentially expressed genes between COPD patients and healthy people were obtained, which were verified and compared with the target information predicted by network pharmacology, and new targets were obtained, namely BCHE, PLA2G7, MMP9, PLA2G4A, LGALS3, HSPA1A. Finally, the results of molecular docking confirmed that the active components had good binding ability with the target. Feilike capsule plays a role in treating COPD with multi -components, multi - targets, multi - signal channels and multi - biological functions.
