A Network Pharmacology Study on the Cervix Prescription for Treatment of Cervical Cancer

Based on the method of network pharmacology to explore the mechanism of the cervical prescription (CP) in the treatment of cervical cancer (CC).

We obtained the active ingredients and potential targets in the CP from the literature and the systematic pharmacological analysis platform of traditional Chinese medicine (BATMAN-TCM); the database was used to search for targets related to cervical cancer and to map CP and targets; the core targets were screened, and the protein-protein interaction network (PPI) was constructed using the TCM compound-target network and STRING database. Gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto Gene and Genome Encyclopedia (KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis of overlapping targets were performed using DAVID 6.8 online tool.

The CP contains 2 active ingredients, corresponding to 301 nonreactive targets; 10 GO biological process related items and 73 signal pathways were obtained. Cell experiments confirmed that the medicated serum of CP could effectively inhibit the proliferation and invasion ability of Hela cells.

This study provides valuable information for TCM researchers and clinicians to better understand the main therapeutic targets and therapeutic roles of herbal decoctions in clinical settings. The results of our study preliminarily clarified that the cervical prescription has an inhibitory effect on cervical cancer cells.