Exploring the mechanism of Radix pseudostellariae in the treatment of chronic gastritis based on network pharmacology and molecular docking techniques

Abstract Radix pseudostellariae (RP) has been used for the treatment of various diseases, including gastric disorders such as Chronic gastritis (CG), However, the multi-targeting mechanism of RP on CG still needs to be clarified. Drug targets were established through TCMSP, PubChem and Swiss Target Prediction online database. GeneCards database was used to search for chronic gastritis related targets. Cytoscape was utilized to construct the "drug-active ingredient-target" network relationship diagram. Venny plots of drug targets and disease targets were obtained from online software to get the intersecting genes, and the coincidence targets were imported into STRING database to construct a PPI network. The intersecting targets were subjected to pathway enrichment analysis KEGG and GO functional enrichment analysis with the help of the DAVID database. Molecular docking was performed by Autodocktools software and then visualized by PYMOL. 8 active ingredients and 117 action targets were obtained for Radix Pseudostellariae, 758 action targets for chronic gastritis disease, 31 intersecting targets for Radix Pseudostellariae in chronic gastritis were obtained. PPI network analysis showed that the core targets of the drug affecting chronic gastritis were TNF, MMP9, AKT1, etc. The molecular docking validation results showed good binding of core components and core targets.