Network Pharmacology Approach for the Mechanism of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Acne

Abstract Objective To explore the molecular mechanism of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in the treatment of acne based on network pharmacology. Methods The main active components of TCM were screened by Traditional Chinese Medicine Systems Pharmacology Database and Analysis Platform (TCMSP）and Encyclopedia of Traditional Chinese Medicine (ETCM) database and the target was predicted by Swiss Target Prediction website. At the same time, the related targets of ance were screened from Gene Card database, Disgent database, and Therapeutic Target Database (TTD)database. The protein-protein interaction network was constructed using String website and Cytoscape 3.9.1 software after mapping the component target and disease target. Molecular docking technology was used to match potential active components with key targets. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) were analyzed by Metascape website. Cytoscape3.9.1 software was used to construct the herb-component-target-pathway network. Results 207 active ingredients and 1722 potential targets were screened from TCM, among which 70 core targets and 20 pathways were closely related to the treatment of acne. Molecular docking results showed that the active ingredients and their key targets had good binding activity. Conclusion TCM has biological support in treating acne. Different proteins have synergistic effects, in which SRC, MAPK1, STAT3, RELA, RXRA, EP300, NFKB1, and NFKBIA, etc. play a key role. Biological processes are mainly involved in hormone synthesis, endocrine regulation, angiogenesis, cell signal transduction, inflammation, etc. These targets are mainly concentrated in multiple signaling pathways such as MAPK and Rap1 signal pathways, which play key roles in anti-inflammatory, anti-skin keratosis, regulation of cell adhesion, repair of the skin barrier, and so on.