Use of network pharmacology and molecular docking to explore the mechanism of action of turmeric in the treatment of osteosarcoma

Abstract

Abstract Turmeric has been used as an adjuvant treatment for osteosarcoma (OS) owing to its anticancer components. However, the underlying mechanism remains unclear. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the mechanism of action of turmeric in the treatment of OS using network pharmacology and molecular docking. The methods included obtaining data on anticancer ingredients, turmeric targets, and OS treatment targets from public databases and relevant literature, structuring the “protein‒protein interaction” networks to screen out the hub genes and to analyze protein modules, and performing Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analyses of intersection targets were performed. Finally, the relationship between key targets and core component was analyzed by molecular docking. Our research demonstrated that a total of 11 potential active compounds and 14 hub genes for turmeric were screened and predicted. AKT1, TNF, STAT3, EGFR, and HSP90AA1 were the key targets, closely related to PI3K/Akt signaling pathways, HIF-1 signaling pathways, ErbB signaling pathways, and FOXO signaling pathways,which were involved in the angiogenesis, cancer cell proliferation, metastasis, invasion, and chemotherapy resistance in the microenvironment of OS. The molecular docking suggested that core ingredient had a strong affinity with key targets. The study showed that turmeric-mediated treatment of OS was complex process involving multiple components, targets, and pathways. It will enhance the understanding of how turmeric affects the proliferation and invasion of OS cells and reveal the potential molecular mechanism underlying the effect of turmeric on OS lung metastasis and chemotherapy resistance.