Exploration on Medication Rules and Mechanism of Chinese Medicinals of HOU Xiujuan in Treating Asymptomatic Hyperuricemia Based on Data Mining and Network Pharma⁃ cology
Abstract:Objective:To generalize and analyze the Chinese medicinal prescriptions of Professor HOU Xiujuan for the treatment of asymptomatic hyperuricemia (HUA) with internal accumulation of phlegm-damp syndrome by using data mining techniques,to summarize the combination characteristics and medication rules of Chinese medicinals for the treatment of asymptomatic HUA, and to predict the potential targets of the core Chinese medicinals and molecular mechanisms in the treatment of asymptomatic HUA based on network pharmacological analysis methods. Methods:The data collection and screening was conducted on the case data and outpatient prescriptions of patients of asymptomatic HUA with internal accumulation of phlegm-damp syndrome,who were treated by Professor HOU Xiujuan in the Department of Rheumatology,Dongfang Hospital,Beijing University of Chinese Medicine from January 2018 to September 2023. Frequency statistics,association rule analysis,and cluster analysis were performed on the included prescriptions by using Microsoft Excel 2022 and IBM SPSS Modeler 18.0 softwares. The Traditional Chinese Medicine Systems Pharmacology Database and Analysis Platform (TCMSP) was used to obtain and summarize the chemical components and potential targets of Chinese medicinals; the Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) and GeneCards databases were used to screen for the targets of HUA-related diseases,and the Venn diagrams were drawn to find out the overlapping targets of Chinese medicinals and HUA, and the STRING database was used to construct a protein-protein interaction network,so as to screen the definitive core targets;and the pathways and functions of the core targets were explored in the Metascape website. Results: A total of 221 Chinese medicinals appeared in the 389 prescriptions recorded. The top 8 Chinese meidicinals,in decending order of frequency,were Puerariae Lobatae Radix,Dioscoreae Rhizoma,Coicis Semen,Achyranthis Bidentatae Radix,Poria,Plantaginis Herba,Atractylodis Macrocephalae Rhizoma,and Atractylodis Rhizoma. The core prescription consisting of such 8 Chinese medicinals was named as Jianpi Jiangzhuo Prescription. There were 76 corresponding compounds and 237 related targets. The targets of HUA were retrieved from GeneCards and OMIM databases,and 910 HUA-related targets were obtained after merging and removing the similar indicators. By mapping the targets of core Chinese medicinals to HUA-related targets,73 key targets for the treatment of HUA with Chinese medicinals were obtained , and the core prescription involved 76 compounds,237 related targets,and 90 HUA-related targets,which mined out 73 overlapping targets and 15 core targets of Chinese medicinals and diseases; 157 pathways were obtained by enrichment analysis from Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG). Such pathways mainly covered lipid and atherosclerosis signaling pathway,AGE-RAGE signaling pathway in diabetes mellitus,pulse shear force and atherosclerosis signaling pathway, and PI3K/AKT signaling pathway. Conclusion:The basic treatment for asymptomatic HUA with internal accumulation of phlegm-damp syndrome should be focused on strengthening the spleen and purgating turbidity. The core prescription for the treatment of asymptomatic HUA has the characteristics of multi-components,multi-core targets,and multiple pathways synergizing actions,which may be closely related to the targets such as IL-6,TNF,IL-1β,etc.,primarily regulating the metabolism of uric acid and inhibiting inflammation through the signaling pathways such as PI3K/AKT, IL-17.