Background and objectives Traditional Chinese Medicine has been implemented in clinical practice for thousands of years to treat rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Aconitum carmichaelii Debx (Fuzi) and Paeonia lactiflora Pall (Baishao) are a common herb-pair that is used in many herbal prescriptions to treat RA. However, the mechanism of Fuzi and Baishao for treating RA remains unclear. Here, we used a systems pharmacology and molecular docking approach to investigate the mechanism of Fuzi and Baishao in the treatment of RA.
Methods We obtained active compounds and targets through a database search and manual supplementation, followed by network construction and protein-protein interaction construction, which were then verified using molecular docking, Gene Ontology, and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analyses.
Results We obtained 56 active compounds (including a duplicate compound), 102 targets, and 54 pathways using our systems approach. The results indicate that both herbs are involved in IL-17 and tumor necrosis factor signaling pathways through albumin, interleukin-6, glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, epidermal growth factor receptor, prostaglandin-endoperoxide synthase 2, and other targets in the treatment of RA. After the combination, the number of targets, pathways, and specific targets on pathways increased.
Conclusion This research provides new insight into this particular herb pair and novel research directions for the treatment of RA with Fuzi and Baishao.
Acknowledgments
There is nothing to declare.
Funding
This study was supported by the Sichuan Science and Technology Program (2023NSFSC1778).
Conflict of interest
SJY has been an editorial board member of Future Integrative Medicine since September 2021. These authors declare that there are no conflict of interests regarding this work.
Author contributions
Methodology (JL, SJY, and PC); validation (YXZ and HMZ); for-mal analysis (DDZ); writing-original draft preparation (YXZ and HMZ); software (DDZ); writing-review and editing (JL and SJY). All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Data sharing statement
All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Informa-tion files.
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