Network Pharmacology Analysis of Damnacanthus indicus C.F.Gaertn in Gene-Phenotype

Damnacanthus indicus C.F.Gaertn is known as Huci in traditional Chinese medicine. It contains a component having anthraquinone-like structure which is a part of the many used anticancer drugs. This study was to collect the evidence of disease-modulatory activities of Huci by analyzing the published literature on the chemicals and drugs. A list of its compounds and direct protein targets is predicted by using Bioinformatics Analysis Tool for Molecular Mechanism of TCM. A protein-protein interaction network using links between its directed targets and the other known targets was constructed. The DPT-associated genes in net were scrutinized by WebGestalt. Exploring the cancer genomics data related to Huci through cBio Portal. Survival analysis for the overlap genes is done by using UALCAN. We got 16 compounds and it predicts 62 direct protein targets and 100 DPTs and they were identified for these compounds. DPT-associated genes were analyzed by WebGestalt. Through the enrichment analysis, we got top 10 identified KEGG pathways. Refined analysis of KEGG pathways showed that one of these ten pathways is linked to Rap1 signaling pathway and another one is related to breast cancer. The survival analysis for the overlap genes shows the significant negative effect of these genes on the breast cancer patients. Through the research results of Damnacanthus indicus C.F.Gaertn, it is shown that medicine network pharmacology may be regarded as a new paradigm for guiding the future studies of the traditional Chinese medicine in different fields.