Study on the Mechanism of Ginseng in the Treatment of Lung Adenocarcinoma Based on Network Pharmacology.

Qiu-Yue Li,Li-Ping Yang,Xue-Lei Chu,Yong Zhao,Cheng-Zhi Hou,Yuan Wang,Ping Zhang

doi:10.1155/2020/2658795

Abstract

Background Ginseng, a traditional Chinese medicine, was used to prevent and treat many diseases such as diabetes, inflammation, and cancer. In recent years, there are some reports about the treatment of lung adenocarcinoma with ginseng monomer compounds, but there is no systematic study on the related core targets and mechanism of ginseng in the treatment of lung adenocarcinoma up to now. Therefore, this study systematically and comprehensively studied the molecular mechanism of ginseng in the treatment of lung adenocarcinoma based on network pharmacology and further proved the potential targets by A549 cell experiments for the first time. Methods The targets of disease and drug were obtained from Gene database. Subsequently, the compound-target network was constructed, and the core potential targets were screened out by plug-in into Cytoscape. Furthermore, the core targets and mechanism of ginseng in the treatment of lung adenocarcinoma were verified by MTT test, cell scratch test, immunohistochemistry, and qRT-PCR. Results 1791 disease targets and 144 drug targets were obtained by searching the Gene database. Meanwhile, 15 core targets were screened out: JUN, MAPK8, PTGS2, CASP3, VEGFA, MMP9, AKT1, TNF, FN1, FOS, MMP782, IL-1β, IL-2, ICAM1, and HMOX1. The results of cell experiments indicate that ginseng could treat lung adenocarcinoma by cell proliferation, migration, and apoptosis. In addition, according to the results of the 15 core targets by qRT-PCR, JUN, IL-1β, IL-2, ICAM1, HMOX1, MMP9, and MMP2 are upregulated core targets, while PTGS2 and TNF are downregulated core targets. Conclusion This study systematically and comprehensively studied 15 core targets by network pharmacology for the first time. Subsequently, it is verified that 9 core targets for ginseng treatment of lung adenocarcinoma, namely, JUN, IL-1β, IL-2, ICAM1, HMOX1, MMP9, MMP2, PTGS2, and TNF, are closely related to the proliferation, migration, and apoptosis of lung adenocarcinoma cells. This study has reference value for the clinical application of ginseng in the treatment of lung adenocarcinoma.

Highlights

Cancer is the major cause of death worldwide, among which lung cancer is the top killer [1, 2]
All the compounds of ginseng were obtained from the TCMSP database (Traditional Chinese Medicine Systems Pharmacology, http:// www.ibts.hkbu.eduhk/LSP/tcmsp.php) [14]. e potential active compounds of ginseng were screened according to Oral Bioavailability (OB) ≥ 0.3 and Drug-Like (DL) Index ≥0.18
There are 7 active compounds targeted at CASP3, 6 at TNF, 4 at IL-1β, and 3 at MMP9. e rest are lung adenocarcinoma genes except IL-2 and HSP90AA1 in the 28 key targets

Summary

Introduction

Cancer is the major cause of death worldwide, among which lung cancer is the top killer [1, 2]. There are some reports about the treatment of lung adenocarcinoma with ginseng monomer compounds such as ginsenoside and polysaccharide [11, 12], but there is no systematic and comprehensive study on the related core targets and mechanism of ginseng in the treatment of lung adenocarcinoma. Erefore, this study systematically and comprehensively studied the molecular mechanism of ginseng in the treatment of lung adenocarcinoma based on network pharmacology and further proved the potential targets by A549 cell experiments for the first time. It is verified that 9 core targets for ginseng treatment of lung adenocarcinoma, namely, JUN, IL-1β, IL-2, ICAM1, HMOX1, MMP9, MMP2, PTGS2, and TNF, are closely related to the proliferation, migration, and apoptosis of lung adenocarcinoma cells. It is verified that 9 core targets for ginseng treatment of lung adenocarcinoma, namely, JUN, IL-1β, IL-2, ICAM1, HMOX1, MMP9, MMP2, PTGS2, and TNF, are closely related to the proliferation, migration, and apoptosis of lung adenocarcinoma cells. is study has reference value for the clinical application of ginseng in the treatment of lung adenocarcinoma

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion