The multi‐target mechanism of Cyclosporin A in the treatment of vitiligo based on network pharmacology

Network pharmacology is an emerging discipline that designs drugs based on systems biology theory and biological system network analysis. Here, we applied network pharmacology to analyze the multi-target mechanism of Cyclosporin A in the treatment of vitiligo First, we predicted the targets of Cyclosporin A. Second, we obtained the genes related to vitiligo from the database. Third, we constructed the PPI network of the mutual genes between Cyclosporin A and vitiligo and used gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) to analyze. Finally, we verified the prediction of potential targets through a docking study with Cyclosporin A. We found that there were 15 shared target genes between Cyclosporin A and vitiligo. We analyzed these 15 genes by Cytoscape and obtained a network diagram of 885 nodes. Through screening and molecular docking, PRKDC, CUL7, CUL1, HSPA8, HSPA4, and SIRT7 were the most likely multi-target mechanism of Cyclosporin A in the treatment of vitiligo. In our study, Cyclosporin A might not only affect the repair of DNA strands by targeting PRKDC, but also affected the innate and adaptive immune function of vitiligo patients by the targets of CUL1, CUL7, and HSP70. In addition, Cyclosporin A might promote the repigmentation of vitiligo by adjusting the expression of SIRT7.