Potential molecular mechanism of celery seed in gout treatment of network pharmacology with molecular docking

Abstract

Objective: To study the molecular mechanism of celery seed inhibiting or treating gout by using network pharmacology and molecular docking. Methods: TCMSP database and the network maps were constructed with Cytoscape3.9.0 software. Gout-related targets were collected in GeneCard database and OMIM database, crossed with the main component targets of celery seed and imported into STRING database for protein-protein interaction （protein-protein interaction, PPI） analysis, core targets were obtained, core targets were introduced into DAVID, and GO function enrichment and KEGG pathway enrichment were performed in the database. Finally, AutoDock software was used to verify the key components with key targets. Results: There were 16 main components of celery seeds, 69 common targets. After topological analysis, quercetin, apigenin, luteolin, celery, five core components and 10 key targets of gout TNF, MAPK14, IL4, CXCL8, LYN, PDGFRβ, HCK, VEGFA, ITGA, IL2, were closely involved in inhibiting or treating gout. The results of GO and KEGG analysis showed that the core components of celery seed acted through regulating biological processes such as apoptosis, proliferation and migration, and through PI3K-Akt signaling pathway, IL-17 signaling pathway, MAPK signaling pathway, and NF-κB signaling pathway. The molecular docking results showed that the five core components were closely bound to the 10 key target proteins with high confidence, verifying the accuracy of the network pharmacology prediction results. Conclusion: This study reveals the role of celery seed in inhibiting or treating gout, and lays a foundation for the development of single Chinese herbal medicine and the study of "medicine and food homology" to control metabolic diseases.

Keywords

• celery seed
• gout
• network pharmacology
• molecular docking
• metabolic diseases
• homology of medicine and food