Exploring the Mechanism of White Peony in the Treatment of Lupus Nephritis Based on Network Pharmacology and Molecular Docking.

Abstract

Lupus nephritis (LN) is still a great burden for patients with systemic lupus erythematosus, and also one of the most severe complications of SLE. Radix Paeoniae Alba (white peony, WP) is proved with potential efficacy in treating LN. This study was to explore the effective ingredients, potential targets, and pathways of WP in treating LN based on network pharmacology and molecular docking. The active ingredients and potential protein targets of WP were gathered on Traditional Chinese Medicine Systematic Pharmacology Database and predicted by Swiss Target Prediction. LN-related therapeutic targets were acquired from multiple databases including Genecards, DisGeNET, OMIM, Drugbank, and PharmGKB. The intersection targets of WP and LN were acquired through Veeny 2.1.0. Protein-Protein Interaction (PPI) network was established by STRING. The results were then visualized by Cytoscape version 3.7.1. to study the mechanisms of WP on LN, gene ontology and functional enrichment analysis were carried out. Finally, molecular docking presented with the binding ability of key targets and major active components. We acquired a total of 13 active ingredients and 260 potential targets of WP. Among them, the intersection with targets of LN were 82 proteins. These targets were regarded as potential therapeutic targets. Through PPI network, we found that the top three proteins were RAC-alpha serine/threonine protein kinase (AKT1), vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGFA), and transcription factor Jun (JUN), and their corresponding components were kaempferol, paeoniflorin, lactiflorin, paeoniflorgenone, etc. The results of enrichment analysis suggested that WP treatment for LN mainly involves in signaling pathways in cancer, lipid and atherosclerosis, advanced glycation end product (AGE)-receptor of AGE (RAGE) pathways, C-type lectin receptor and nuclear factor (NF)-kappa B signaling pathways. Molecular docking predicted that the above components have excellent affinity to AKT1, VEGFA, and JUN. This study gave an insight into the key target proteins and potential underlying pharmacological mechanism of WP in treating LN, which provided evidence for further researches on the mechanism of WP on LN.