To investigate the molecular biological mechanism of Yiqi Huayu Xieju Fang in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) by using network pharmacology and bioinformatics. The TCM systematic pharmacology platform (TCMSP) was used to screen the active ingredients and targets of TCM in Yi-qi Huayu Huayu Xiehu Fang, the UniProt database was used to query the genes of the target proteins corresponding to the active ingredients, and the GeneCards database was used to screen the targets of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC); and the online Venny was used to obtain the common targets of Yi-qi Huayu Huayu Xiehu Fang and COPD. The obtained results were imported into Cytoscape software for visualization and analysis, and the PPI network was constructed to screen the core targets. Metascape database was used to analyze the GO enrichment and KEGG-related pathway enrichment of the core targets; Autodock Tools and Pymol software were used to validate the molecular docking of the core target proteins with the core active ingredients. A total of 181 active ingredients, 478 potential targets, and 15,256 COPD targets were obtained from Yiqi Huayu Detoxification Formula, and 400 common targets were obtained after intersection. The analysis of the targets and active ingredients of Yiqi Huayu Xiehu Xiehu Fang for COPD prevention and treatment showed that the key active ingredients, mainly quercetin, luteolin, kaempferol, skullcapflavone II, isorhamnetin, etc., as well as MAPK3, AMPK3, AMPK3, and AMPK3 were obtained. The GO function enrichment analysis yielded 1154 biological processes (BP), 137 cellular components (CC), 135 molecular functions (MF), and 166 KEGG signaling pathways, indicating that they were mainly involved in AGE-RAGE, cAMP, and NF-κB signaling pathways, NF-κB signaling pathways, which are closely related to inflammation, oxidative stress, and metabolism; the molecular docking results all showed that the binding required lower energy, higher affinity, and could form stable conformations. Through network pharmacology and molecular docking technology, it was found that Yiqi Huayu Detoxification Formula was anti-COPD through multi-targets and multiple pathways, indicating that the formula has the characteristics of multi-components, multi-targets, and multi-pathways of efficacy, which will provide new ideas and bases for the future related research.

Liqiong Xiong. Network Pharmacology-Based Analysis of the Mechanism of Action of Yiqi Resolving Stasis and Detoxification Formula in COPD. International Journal of Frontiers in Medicine (2024), Vol. 6, Issue 12: 53-59. https://doi.org/10.25236/IJFM.2024.061208.

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