A Network Pharmacology Study to Explore Mechanism of the Drug Pair of Astragalus-Saposhnikoviae Radix in the Treatment of Allergic Rhinitis

Abstract

Allergic rhinitis (AR) has now become one of the major diseases affecting people’s lives, and Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) always has good efficacy in clinical treatment. In the present study, we analyzed the most frequently used drug pair of Astragalus-Saposhnikoviae Radix (SR) in prescriptions for the treatment of allergic rhinitis by network pharmacology to reveal the modern pharmacological mechanisms of drug prevention and treatment of the disease. Firstly, the 38 active ingredients with good ADME properties from the Astragalus-SR drug pair were collected from the database, and the collated drug targets of Astragalus and SR and the targets of allergic rhinitis were mapped against each other by the network visualization software Cytoscape, followed by the establishment of a “drug active ingredient-target-disease” network diagram and the construction of a high-confidence protein-protein interaction network. Then, the common targets obtained from the disease and drug active ingredients were imported by R language for GO enrichment analysis and KEGG pathway enrichment analysis. The KEGG pathways associated with the targets of Astragalus and SR for the treatment of allergic rhinitis obtained from R enrichment analysis were imported into Cytoscape, and the CytoNCA plug-in was loaded to construct a “target-pathway” network map, and the core target wogonin (FN1) was screened. These evidences suggest that the drug pair of Astragalus-SR works in a multi-component, multi-target and integrated modulation manner for the treatment of allergic rhinitis, which provides an important basis for the treatment of allergic rhinitis.