Network pharmacology-based analysis on the mechanism of action of Houttuynia cordata Thunb.in treating bacterial keratitis and fungal keratitis

LU Honglong; ZOU Lianjia; LI Xuezheng

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1674-3806.2025.03.16

Abstract：Objective To explore the mechanism of action of Houttuynia cordata Thunb.in treating bacterial keratitis(BK)and fungal keratitis(FK)based on network pharmacology technology.Methods The main chemical components of Houttuynia cordata Thunb.were obtained from Traditional Chinese Medicine Systems Pharmacology Database and Analysis Platform(TCMSP)database and chemical database.The action targets of the chemical components of Houttuynia cordata Thunb.were obtained from Swiss Target Prediction database and TargetNet database.GeneCards database and DisGeNET database were used to obtain the potential targets of BK and FK.Protein-protein interaction(PPI)network and"active ingredient-core target-key pathway"network were constructed by using STRING database and Cytoscape software.DAVID database was used to perform Gene Ontology(GO)enrichment analysis and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes(KEGG)pathway enrichment analysis on the potential targets of Houttuynia cordata Thunb.in treating BK and FK,and the mechanisms of action were predicted.Results In this study,14 main active ingredients of Houttuynia cordata Thunb.and 858 potential targets were screened out,and 70 potential targets for treating BK and 52 potential targets for treating FK were determined after analysis.The results of PPI analysis showed that 12 core proteins were related to the treatment of Houttuynia cordata Thunb.for BK and 15 core proteins were related to the treatment of Houttuynia cordata Thunb.for FK,and GO enrichment analysis and KEGG pathway enrichment analysis revealed the related biological processes,molecular functions,cell composition and main pathways.The"active ingredient-core target-key pathway"network showed that quercetin in Houttuynia cordata Thunb.was the key active compound in treating BK and FK.The key target of treating BK was protein kinase B1(AKT1),and the key target of treating FK was mitogen-activated protein kinase 14(MAPK14).The nuclear factor-kappa B(NF-κB)signaling pathway was their common key action pathway.Conclusion Houttuynia cordata Thunb.has the characteristics of synergistic effects of multiple components,multiple targets and multiple pathways in the treatments of BK and FK,and quercetin is the core active ingredient.