Data mining and systematic pharmacology to reveal the mechanisms of traditional Chinese medicine in Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia treatment

Abstract

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is widely used in the treatment of Mycoplasma pneumoniae Pneumonia (MPP) in East Asia. However, our current understanding of the underlying molecular mechanism remains dispersive and promiscuous. In this study, a systematic pharmacological approach combined with literature data mining was applied for drug similarity evaluation, drug half-life evaluation, oral bioavailability prediction, drug target exploration, Gene Ontology (GO) analysis, KEGG pathway enrichment and network construction, thus providing the rationale for its clinical performance. Five mostly studied herbs, including Ephedra Herba, Amygdalus communis Vas, Platycodon grandiforus, Licorice and Scutellariae Radix, were selected from the literature. Total ninety-three active ingredients, which are expected to be the effective components for MPP treatment, were screened out. Interrelationship between active compounds, drug targets and signaling pathways were analyzed to reveal the therapeutic effect of TCM in detail. Of importance, we found that TNF, β2AR and PTGS2 play pivotal role in TCM mediated MPP inhibition. And mechanistically, epithelial apoptosis (defensive barrier function), GPCR signaling (symptom amelioration) and immune pathways (innate signaling and adaptive Th17 response) are critically involved. Our work, achieved through systematic pharmacology and data mining, enlarges the knowledge of TCM in MPP therapy, and could provide valuable insights for further drug discovery studies.