Exploring the pharmacological mechanism of Yanghe Decoction on HER2-positive breast cancer by a network pharmacology approach

Abstract

Ethnopharmacological relevance: Certain Chinese medicine formulae from traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) are effective for treating and preventing diseases in clinical practice. Yanghe Decoction (YHD) is a Chinese medicine formula that is used to treat breast cancer, especially HER-positive breast cancer; however, the active compounds, potential targets, and pharmacological and molecular mechanism of its action against cancer remain unclear. Therefore, further investigation is required.

Methods: A network pharmacology approach comprising drug-likeness evaluation, oral bioavailability prediction, Caco-2 permeability prediction, multiple compound target prediction, multiple know target collection, breast cancer genes collection, and network analysis has been used in this study.

Results: Four networks are set up, including HER2-positive breast cancer network, compound-compound target network of YHD, YHD-HER2-positive breast cancer network and compound-known target-HER2-positive breast cancer network, and some HER2-positive breast cancer and YHD related targets, clusters, biological processes and pathways are found. We also found some potential anti-cancer compounds.

Conclusion: Our works successfully predict, illuminate and confirm the molecular synergy of YHD for HER2-positive breast cancer and found the potential HER2-positive breast cancer associated targets, cluster, biological processes and pathways. This study not only provide clues to the researcher who explores pharmacological and molecular mechanism of YHD acting on HER2-positive breast cancer, but also demonstrates a feasible method for discovering potential drugs from Chinese medicine formulae.

Keywords: Chinese medicine formulae; HER2-positive breast cancer; Network pharmacology; Traditional Chinese medicine; Yanghe Decoction.