Analyzing the Molecular Mechanism of Eucalyptol, Limonene and Pinene Enteric Capsules (QIENUO) in the Treatment of Pulmonary cystic fibrosis with Network Pharmacology and Verifying Molecular Docking

Abstract Objective To explore the mechanism of Eucalyptol, Limonene and Pinene Enteric Capsules (QIENUO) in the treatment of pulmonary cystic fibrosis (CPF), analyze the common targets of QIENUO and CPF, and verify the molecular docking of core proteins and small molecules. Methods The main active compounds and their corresponding targets were obtained from PubChem, SwissTargetprediction, GeneCards, PharmMapper and TCMSP databases. Targets related to CPF were screened from GeneCards, OMIM, DisGeNET and TTD databases. The common “QIENUO-CPF” targets were analyzed by gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) through the website of Weishengxin. Protein-protein interaction (PPI) network and compound-target-pathway network were constructed by Cytoscape, and the network parameters were systematically analyzed. The interaction between core protein and monomer components was evaluated and verified by molecular docking method. Results 228 active compounds target and 1354 CPF-related targets were screened out, and 92 common targets were analyzed by GO and KEGG. The results showed that the therapeutic effect of QIENUO on CPF was mainly through AMPK signaling pathway, cGMP-PKG signaling pathway and TGF-β signaling pathway. The results of molecular docking show that the binding energy of 9 of 15 pairs of ligand-receptor pairs is lower than-6 kjmol-1. Conclusion QIENUO exhibits huge potential as a therapeutic agent for the treatment of pulmonary cystic fibrosis. The specific molecular mechanism and effective active components of QIENUO treat CPF were studied and demonstrated, which provided theoretical basis for better clinical application of QIENUO.