Identification of drug compounds for keloids and hypertrophic scars: drug discovery based on text mining and...

Keloids (KL) and hypertrophic scars (HS) are forms of abnormal cutaneous scarring characterized by excessive deposition of extracellular matrix and fibroblast proliferation. Currently, the efficacy of drug therapies for KL and HS is limited. The present study aimed to investigate new drug therapies for KL and HS by using computational methods.

Text mining and GeneCodis were used to mine genes closely related to KL and HS. Protein-protein interaction analysis was performed using Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting Genes/Proteins (STRING) and Cytoscape. The selection of drugs targeting the genes closely related to KL and HS was carried out using Pharmaprojects. Drug-target interaction prediction was performed using DeepPurpose, through which candidate drugs with the highest predicted binding affinity were finally obtained.

Our analysis using text mining identified 69 KL- and HS-related genes. Gene enrichment analysis generated 25 genes, representing 7 pathways and 130 targeting drugs. DeepPurpose recommended 14 drugs as the final drug list, including 2 phosphatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate 3-kinase (PI3K) inhibitors, 10 prostaglandin-endoperoxide synthase 2 (PTGS2) inhibitors and 2 vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGFA) antagonists.

Drug discovery using in silico text mining and DeepPurpose may be a powerful and effective way to identify drugs targeting the genes related to KL and HS.