Li Du,1 De-Hui Du,2 Biao Chen,2 Yue Ding,3 Tong Zhang,3 Wei Xiao1,4 1Institute of Chinese Materia Medica, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China; 2Shanghai Key Laboratory of Trustworthy Computing and Software Engineering Institute, East China Normal University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China; 3Experiment Center for Teaching and Learning, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China; 4Jiangsu Kanion Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Tong ZhangExperiment Center for Teaching and Learning, Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, 1200 Cailun Road, Shanghai 201203, People’s Republic of ChinaTel +86 021-5132-3175Email zhangtdmj@hotmail.comWei XiaoJiangsu Kanion Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd, Jiangning Industrial City, Economic and Technological Development Zone, Jiangsu, Lianyungang 222001, People’s Republic of ChinaTel +86 0518-85521956Email xw-kanion@163.comBackground: Sanjie Zhentong capsule (SZC) offers excellent effect in treating adenomyosis (AM), which is a common and difficult gynecological disease in the clinic. However, the systematic analysis of its mechanism has not been carried out yet and further studies are needed to reveal the role of SZC.Methods: A systematic network pharmacology analysis was conducted by integrating construction of SZC compound database and AM target database, prediction of potential active compounds and targets by molecular docking combined with compound-target prediction graph (CTPG), protein-protein interaction (PPI) analysis, Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analysis. Then, the anti–inflammation experiments in vitro were performed by investigating SZC and the representative compounds regulating nitric oxide (NO), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and interleukin-10 (IL-10).Results: Our findings show that SZC mainly treated AM by stimulating 28 core targets through 30 key potential active compounds, and affecting 4 crucial pathways. The treatment was associated with inflammation reaction, hormone regulation, cell adhesion, proliferation, and angiogenesis. Additionally, SZC achieved the anti–inflammatory activity by the cooperation of the compounds through inhibiting NO and IL-6, both promoting and inhibiting IL-10.Conclusion: This study investigated the anti–inflammatory activity of SZC based on a systematic analysis of SZC remedying AM, which was revealed to be one of the essential mechanisms. These findings will provide valuable guidance for further research of the SZC treatment of AM, and help improve the comprehension of SZC pharmacological basis as well as AM pathogenesis.Keywords: Sanjie Zhentong capsule, adenomyosis, network pharmacology, molecular docking, compound-target prediction graph, anti-inflammation
