Exploration on the Mechanism of Bazhen Yizhi Prescription in Treating Alzheimer's Disease Based on Network Pharmacology and Molecular Docking

OBJECTIVE To provide a theoretical basis for the clinical application of Bazhen Yizhi Prescription (BZYZP)， an exploration of the potential mechanism of BZYZP in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD) was performed using network pharmacology and molecular docking. METHODS TCMSP， BATMAN-TCM， TCMID， CNKI and Pubmed database were used to search the compounds and the targets of BZYZP. The AD-related targets were screened by the GeneCards and OMIM databases. R3.6.3 was applied to get the cross targets between drugs and disease. PPI network was constructed by String database and Cytoscape 3.7.2， the core targets were screened. Gene ontology (GO) functional enrichment analysis and KEGG pathway enrichment analysis were performed by DAVID. AutoDock tools 1.5.6 and AutoDock Vina 1.1.2 were used for Molecular docking. RESULTS Total of 200 active components were screened from BZYZP， corresponding to 226 targets. Among them， there were 37 core targets including AKT1， MAPK3， IL-6， VEGFA， and CASP3， and 15 core compounds， such as quercetin， kaempferol， naringin， stigmasterol， 7-methoxy-2-methyl isoflavone. Total 1 331 (P<0.05) and 65 pathways (P<0.05) were obtained by GO analysis and KEGG analysis. The results of molecular docking showed that 15 core compounds had a good affinity with AKT1， MAPK3， IL-6， VEGFA and CASP3. CONCLUSION The pathways of BZYZP in the treatment of AD mainly involve the pathway of cancer， MAPK signal pathway， prostate cancer， neuroactive ligand-receptor interaction， calcium signal pathway. The results of this study may guide the elucidation of the mechanism of BZYZP in the treatment of AD.