Study on the Multi-targets Mechanism of YiQiFuMai Powder Injection on Cardio-Cerebral Ischemic Diseases Based on Network Pharmacology

YiQiFuMai Powder Injection is a well-known traditional Chinese medicine formula that has been used extensively in clinical treatment of cardio-cerebral ischemic diseases in China. However, the mechanisms underlying its clinical efficacy remain unknown. In this study, a network pharmacology approach was employed to identify the YiQiFuMai Powder Injection's potential pathways and targets against cardio-cerebral ischemia. The target-pathway interaction network clustered the signaling pathways based on high degree nodes of the drug-target network. The potential protein targets presented in the highly scored clustered pathways were the key network hubs and concentrated on one or limited functional signaling pathways amenable to experimental verification. Twelve main functional annotation clusters and main signaling pathways for YiQiFuMai Powder Injection were established by Biocarta analysis, including the NF-κB signaling pathway, the MAPKinase signaling pathway and the mTOR-signaling pathway and so on. YiQiFuMai Powder Injection is hypothesized to target multiple proteins with a high degree and betweenness of network. In addition, the most related pathways were also confirmed in tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) induced human vascular endothelial cell line EA.hy926 by Western blotting. This study elucidates the systematic network and pathway analysis of multitargets in YiQiFuMai Powder Injection. The results provide the possible mechanisms for its mode of action against cardio-cerebral ischemic diseases and may also reveal new clues for its potential application in the inflammatory diseases or tumors.