Mechanisms of Erzhi Pill in Treating Lupus Nephritis Explored by GEO Gene Chips Combined with Network Pharmacology and Molecular Docking

Abstract

Background: The study focused on exploring Erzhi Pill's molecular mechanism in treating lupus nephritis (LN) for the first time by means of network pharmacology, combined with molecular docking (MD) and GEO database analysis. Materials and Methods: Multiple databases were utilized to select compounds and targets of Erzhi Pill and targets of LN. We built a protein-protein interaction network which was later imported into Cytoscape to screen core regulatory genes. The GEO chip was analyzed to verify the key targets and apply Discovery Studio for MD of those screened effective components with hub targets. The drug-disease intersection targets were performed Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment. Results: CASP3 and MMP9 had significant differences by GEO chip analysis. Luteolin and MMP9 have the highest binding affinity through MD. GO and KEGG analysis suggested that Erzhi Pill effect on LN were closely related to cell apoptosis, oxidative stress, and lipid metabolism. Conclusions: Erzhi Pill has been found to treat LN in various ways through multi-component, multi-target interaction, and multi-pathway.