Abstract
The Chinese medicine Qigesan can be used to treat esophageal adenocarcinoma in the Chinese mainland widely, but its mechanism is unclear. In order to investigate the mechanism of Qigesan in the treatment of esophageal adenocarcinoma, the concept of network pharmacology was used in this study. The database named TCMSP was used to identify the active therapeutic components as well as targets of Qigesan. The TTD, OMIM, CTD, DrugBank, and GeneCards database were used to identify genes related to esophageal adenocarcinoma. In STRING database, the potential targets were imported to obtain a PPI network, and then Cytoscape software has been used to analyse the results. Subsequently, important components and targets were simulated by molecular docking. Finally, experiments on the cell have been done to verify well docking targets. A total of 124 effective compounds and 646 corresponding targets were filtered. 1478 genes were found to be related to esophageal adenocarcinoma. 68 genes were identified as potential targets for esophageal adenocarcinoma. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analysis of the 68 potential targets indicated that the genes were mainly involved in cell transcription, translation, and apoptosis and mostly expressed in cancer-related pathways. The molecular docking analysis of the hub targets with their corresponding compounds indicated that the well docking targets were AR, ERBB2, and VEGFA. The cell experiments showed that Qigesan can reduce the expression of AR, ERBB2, and VEGFA at transcription and translation level. This network pharmacology study described that the possible targets of Qigesan in treatment of esophageal adenocarcinoma were AR, ERBB2, and VEGFA.
Highlights
Esophageal cancer is known as the most commonly occurring cancers with incidence rate and mortality among the top ten in all cancers [1]
esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) is mainly distributed in Europe and America, and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma is mainly distributed in Asia, Africa, and South America [4]
After screening with the ADME filter standard that we set, a total of 124 compounds were obtained from 7 herbs contained in Qigesan (Table S1)
Summary
Esophageal cancer is known as the most commonly occurring cancers with incidence rate and mortality among the top ten in all cancers [1]. Esophageal cancer includes esophageal squamous cells (ESSC) and esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC). EAC is mainly distributed in Europe and America, and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma is mainly distributed in Asia, Africa, and South America [4]. Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma accounts for 90% of all esophageal cancers. With the adjustment of dietary structure, the incidence rate of esophageal adenocarcinoma is increasing year by year [5, 6]. Ere is a significant gender bias in esophageal adenocarcinoma. Men are more likely to suffer from esophageal adenocarcinoma than women [7]. Barrett’s esophagus is widely considered as a precancerous lesion of esophageal adenocarcinoma. E patients with esophageal adenocarcinoma have worse than that of most onco patients [9].
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