Exploring the potential mechanism of Polygonatum sibiricum for Alzheimer's disease based on network pharmacology and molecular docking

Abstract

Abstract Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease, and there have been no systematic studies of Polygonatum against Alzheimer's disease. This study aimed to identify the primary active components and potential mechanisms of action of Polygonatum in the treatment of AD through network pharmacology and molecular docking. Polygonatum's active ingredients and corresponding targets were identified using the Traditional Chinese Medicine Systematic Pharmacology Database and Analysis Platform (TCMSP). Disease targets of Alzheimer's disease (AD) were retrieved from the therapeutic target database (TTD), Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man(OMIM), GeneCards, and Disgenet databases. We constructed protein interaction PPI networks and performed Gene Ontology (GO) functional enrichment analysis as well as Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis on common targets. As a result, a total of 10 active ingredients and 108 common targets were screened from Polygonatum. After analysis, 29 genes were identified as core genes. According to GO analysis, the core targets were found to be mainly involved in signal transduction, positive regulation of gene expression, and so on. The KEGG analysis revealed that the signaling pathways comprised pathways in cancer, pathways of neurodegeneration - multiple diseases, and PI3K-Akt signaling pathway. The molecular docking results indicated that ten of active ingredients from Polygonatum exhibited strong binding affinity with the six core targets that were screened before. This study confirms that the treatment of Alzheimer's disease with Polygonatum involves multi-targets and multi-pathway interactions, which provides a new perspective on the treatment of Alzheimer's disease and offers a theoretical basis for further research on the pathogenesis and treatment of AD.