Abstract

Objective: Lingzhu San (LZS) is a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) prescription that can be effective in treating febrile seizures (FS) and there are few research works conducted on its mechanisms. In order to better guide the clinical use of LZS, we used the research ideas and methods of network pharmacology to find the potential core compounds, targets and pathways of LZS in the complex TCM system for the treatment of FS, and predict the mechanism.

Materials and Methods: Databases such as BATMAN, TCMSP, TCMID, and SWISS TARGET are used to mine the active compounds and targets of LZS, and the target information of FS is obtained through GENECARDS and OMIM. Using Venny2.1.0 and Cytoscape software, the potential core compounds and targets of FS were obtained. The R language and ClusterProfiler software package are adopted to enrich and analyze the KEGG and GO pathways of the core targets and the biological processes and potential mechanisms of the core targets are also revealed.

Results: 187 active compounds and 2113 target proteins of LZS were collected. And 38 potential core compounds, 35 core targets and 775 metabolic and functional pathways were screened, which were involved in mediating FS. Finally, the role of the core compounds, targets and pivotal pathways of LZS in regulating FS in the pathogenesis and the therapeutic mechanism of FS were discussed and clarified.

Conclusion: In this paper, the multi-compounds, multi-targets and multi-pathways mechanism of LZS in the treatment of FS were preliminarily screened through the analysis of network pharmacology data, which are consistent with the principle of multi-compounds’ compatibility with TCM prescriptions and a unified treatment of diseases from multiple aspects, and it provides a new way for TCM to treat complex diseases caused by multiple factors.

Keywords: Network pharmacology, Lingzhu San, febrile seizures, molecular mechanisms, respiratory dysfunctions, circulatory dysfunctions.