Molecular mechanism of polygonum multiflorum in the treatment of androgenic alopecia: based on bioinformatics and molecular docking method

Abstract

Objective To explore molecular mechanisms of polygonum multiflorum in the treatment of androgenic alopecia and to provide underlying drug targets. Methods Bioinformatics analysis tool for molecular mechanism of Traditional Chinese Medicine and five disease gene databases were used to establish effective ingredients-targets of polygonum multiflorum network and protein-protein interaction network. The core sub-network was extracted through network topology, and then GO and KEGG analyses were performed. Finally, these top 10 molecules with highest connectivity were performed to molecular docking. Results A total of 1 357 common target genes were generated based on the intersection of effective ingredients-targets of polygonum multiflorum and underlying disease targets. The core sub-network including 67 genes was extracted by topological analysis. The KEGG enrichment results showed that polygonum multiflorum produce biological functions mainly through regulating inflammatory response, apoptosis, oxidative stress and autophagy pathways. The molecular docking results demonstrated the binding energy of PIK3CA-emodin, PIK3CA-chrysophanol, PIK3CA-guaijaverin and PIK3CB-emodin were less -9 kcal/mol. Conclusions The mechanism of polygonum multiflorum to treat androgenic alopecia is that PI3K/Akt pathway was mediated to regulate the expression of PIK3CA and PIK3CB to cell apoptosis through emodin. In addition, it is involved in the process of the inhibition of inflammatory response and oxidative stress, and induction of melanin production.

Keywords

• polygonum multiflorum
• emodin
• network pharmacology
• apoptosis
• pi3k/akt pathway