Deciphering the Mechanism of YuPingFeng Granules in Treating Pneumonia: A Network Pharmacology and Molecular Docking Study

Overview

Journal Evid Based Complement Alternat Med

Specialty Rehabilitation Medicine

Date 2022 Oct 26

PMID 36285159

Authors

Bing Huang

Jing Luo

Liu-Yuan Liu

Wu-Sheng Deng

Ke Wang

Hua-Song Lu

Jin-Liang Kong

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Objective: YuPingFeng Granules (YPFGs) is an herbal formula clinically used in China for more than 100 years to treat pneumonia. Nevertheless, the mechanism of YPFG in pneumonia treatment has not been established. This network pharmacology-based strategy has been performed to elucidate active compounds as well as mechanisms of YPFG in pneumonia treatment.

Methods: First, active compounds of YPFG were identified in the traditional Chinese medicine systems pharmacology (TCMSP) database, and then the targets related to the active compounds were obtained from TCMSP and Swiss Target Prediction databases. Next, using DisGeNET, DrugBank, and GeneCards databases, we got therapeutic targets of pneumonia and common targets between pneumonia targets and YPFG. After that, a protein-protein interaction (PPI) network of pneumonia composed of common targets was built to analyze the interactions among these targets, which focused on screening for hub targets by topology. Then, online software and the ClusterProfiler package were utilized for the enrichment analysis of gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) data. Finally, the visualization software of Autodock was used for molecular docking among the hub target proteins.

Results: 10 hub genes were selected by comparing the GO and KEGG functions of pneumonia targets with those of the common targets of YPFG and pneumonia. By using molecular docking technology, a total of 3 active ingredients have been verified as being able to combine closely with 6 hub targets and contribute to their therapeutic effects.

Conclusion: This research explored the multigene pharmacological mechanism of action of YPFG against pneumonia through network pharmacology. The findings present new ideas for studying the mechanism of action of Chinese medicine against pneumonia caused by bacteria.

Citing Articles

Network pharmacology predicts targets and pathways of herbal components for the treatment of pneumonia: A review.

Yang D, Chen C, Zhang Q, Gong J Medicine (Baltimore). 2025; 104(5):e41372.

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Effects of Yu-Ping-Feng polysaccharides on animal growth performance and immune function: a review.

Chu H, Zong Y, Yang H, Chen S, Ma Z, Li H Front Vet Sci. 2023; 10:1260208.

PMID: 37799408 PMC: 10547873. DOI: 10.3389/fvets.2023.1260208.

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