Objective To investigate the mechanism of action of Guizhi Fuling pill in treating chronic prostatitis (CP) using network pharmacology and molecular docking techniques.
Methods Components of Guizhi Fuling pill were collected from the Traditional Chinese Medicines Systems Pharmacology Platform (TCMSP), and target information was obtained from the SwissTarget database. Targets for chronic prostatitis were screened from the GeneCards, OMIM, CTD, and DisGeNET disease databases. A protein-protein interaction (PPI) network was established and analyzed. Gene ontology (GO) functional annotation and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis were performed using the DAVID database. The Cytoscape software was employed to construct an association network linking the components of Guizhi Fuling Pill, their targets, and the targets of chronic prostatitis. Molecular docking was conducted using AutoDock Vina software to verify the binding stability between the components of Guizhi Fuling pill and their targets.
Results After screening and deduplication in the TCMSP database, 76 components of Guizhi Fuling Pill were identified, and 655 component targets were retrieved from the SwissTarget database. There were 190 intersecting targets between GuizhiFuling Pill and chronic prostatitis. GO analysis indicated that Guizhi Fuling Pill may treat chronic prostatitis by participating in processes such asapoptosis, ATP binding, and signal transduction. KEGG analysis suggested that Guizhi Fuling Pill can regulate pathways such as phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/protein kinase B (AKT) and mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) to intervene in chronic prostatitis. Molecular docking data demonstrated that the components of Guizhi Fuling pill exhibited stable conformations with their targets.
Conclusion The components of Guizhi Fuling Pill can stably bind to their targets and exert therapeutic effects on chronic prostatitis through multiple targets and pathways.
DownLoad: