Insights into the Molecular Mechanisms of Liuwei Dihuang Decoction via Network Pharmacology

The
traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) have been used to treat
diseases over a long history, but it is still a great challenge to
uncover the underlying mechanisms for their therapeutic effects due
to the complexity of their ingredients. Based on a novel network pharmacology-based
approach, we explored in this study the potential therapeutic targets
of Liuwei Dihuang (LWDH) decoction in its neuroendocrine immunomodulation
(NIM) function. We not only collected the known targets of the compounds
in LWDH but also predicted the targets for these compounds using the
balanced substructure-drug-target network-based inference (bSDTNBI),
which is a target prediction method based on network inferring developed
by our laboratory. A “target-(pathway)-target” (TPT)
network, in which targets of LWDH were connected by relevant pathways,
was constructed and divided into several separate modules with strong
internal connections. Then the target module that contributes the
most to NIM function was determined through a contribution scoring
algorithm. Finally, the targets with the highest contribution score
to NIM-related diseases in this target module were recommended as
potential therapeutic targets of LWDH.