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Gene & Protein in Disease A prediction on how Epimedii herba treat periodontitis

3 School and Hospital of Stomatology, China Medical University, Shenyang, Liaoning, China
4 Medical Center of Hip, Luoyang Orthopedic-Traumatological Hospital, Luoyang, Henan, China
5 Henan International Joint Laboratory for Nuclear Protein Regulation, Kaifeng, Henan, China

1. Introduction was conducted to reveal the action pathway of EH during
periodontitis treatment from a network pharmacology
Periodontitis, one of the three common oral diseases, perspective, explore the binding liability of EH ingredients
has a high morbidity rate worldwide. The progression with key targets by molecular docking and dynamics, and
1
of periodontitis not only affects the periodontal tissue provide a specific basis for periodontitis treatment.
but also induces or exacerbates systemic diseases such
as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and rheumatoid 2. Methods
2-5
arthritis. Current therapy to control the progression
of periodontitis comprises basic treatments such as 2.1. Collection of the active compounds and active
supragingival and subgingival scaling as well as antibiotic targets of EH
and surgical treatments. Nevertheless, there exists a risk of The traditional Chinese medicine systems pharmacology
6
increased bacterial resistance and possible toxic side effects database and analysis platform (TCMSP) was used to
during antibiotic treatment. Therefore, it is important to explore EH-active compounds. Oral bioavailability (OB) of
7
develop new therapeutic strategies and explore alternative ≥30% and drug-likeness (DL) of ≥0.18 were used to filter the
anti-inflammatory drugs that can better control and treat active compounds, which are the key factors for evaluating
periodontitis. absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion. OB of
≥30% indicated that the drugs had better OB, and DL of
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) can regulate the
body’s own immunity and ameliorate patient symptoms ≥0.18 indicated that the compounds had better solubility,
chemical stability, and drug-like properties. Finally, the
but has certain side effects. 8-10 Epimedii herba (EH) targets of the compounds were obtained using the UniProt
(common name: Yin-yang-huo in China), a herbaceous (https://www.uniprot.org) database.
plant widely distributed in Asia and Europe, has been used
alone or with other TCM to treat various diseases such as 2.2. Collection of disease targets
osteoporosis and sexual dysfunction for >2000 years. 11,12
Modern pharmacological studies have confirmed that “Periodontitis” was used as the keyword to input in the
GeneCards database (https://www.genecards.org), OMIM
EH exhibits numerous pharmacological activities, such database (https://omim.org), DrugBank database (https://
as anti-inflammatory, immune regulatory, and antitumor www.drugbank.ca), TTD (https://db.idrblab.net/ttd/),
effects. 13-15 Existing data have shown that the extracts of and CTD (http://ctdbase.org/) to explore the targets of
EH, icariin, and kaempferol can significantly reduce the periodontitis. Then, using humans as the screening condition,
inflammatory response. 16,17 Moreover, several studies have the protein names of the disease targets were turned into gene
reported the potential of EH for treating periodontitis, names using the UniProt database. The GEO database was
which may contribute to the proliferation of human also used to screen the targets related to periodontitis. Data
periodontal ligament cells and regeneration of alveolar correction was performed in Perl, differential gene analysis
bone. 18,19 However, after entering the human body, the was performed in the Limma package in R software (4.2.2),
pathways and modes of actions of EH are diverse because and the volcano map and heatmap were plotted using the
of multicomponent and multitarget regulation; hence, ggplot2 package. p-values of <0.05 and fold-change values of
it is necessary to further explore the mechanism of core >2 were considered to indicate significant differences. 22
ingredients and targets for the treatment of periodontitis. 20,21
Recently, network pharmacology has received 2.3. Screening of intersection targets
increasing attention in TCM research as it can reveal the The website https://bioinfogp.cnb.csic.es/tools/venny/
interaction mechanisms between the targets and active was used to construct a Venn diagram and obtain the
ingredients of TCM through bioinformatics technology, intersection targets.
which systematically links drugs with diseases to
identify the mode of action of TCM on diseases from the 2.4. Construction of the EH ingredient–target
network interaction level. However, the pharmacological interaction network
mechanism of EH during periodontitis treatment has An interaction network was constructed between
not been exhaustively elucidated. Therefore, this study the ingredients of EH and potential targets using

Volume 3 Issue 4 (2024) 2 doi: 10.36922/gpd.4427