Study on the Mechanism of Mulberry Twig Improving Hyperuricemia Based on Network Pharmacology and Molecular Docking

Objective: To explore the possible target and mechanism of mulberry twig in the treatment of hyperuricemia (HUA). Methods: Batman-TCM, TCMSP, PubMed, CNKI databases were used to obtain components of mulberry twig, component-related targets were collected through SwissTargetPrediction and PharmMapper online analysis platform. HUA targets were collected through GeneCards and OMIM databases. The intersection of disease targets and component targets was taken to obtain shared targets, protein interaction networks were constructed using the STRING database and the Cytoscape software, the compound-target-pathway network was constructed by Cytoscape software. The GO and KEGG enrichment analysis were performed using the DAVID database. Molecular docking was used to verify the results. Results: A total of 45 active components of mulberry twig, which corresponding to 620 targets, 1277 related disease targets of HUA, 128 intersecting targets for active components and HUA were screened out. After topological analysis, there were 13 core targets including VEGFA, SRC, PIK3CA, MAPK1, IL6, TNF, etc. And 10 active components including Luteolin, Quercetin, Cyclomulberrochromene, Moracin M, Morin, Kaempferol, Isorhamnetin, etc. 295 GO entries (P<0.01) and 78 KEGG (P<0.01) signal pathways were obtained by enrichment analyses. Among them, there are 212 biological processes (BP), which mainly included positive regulation of cell proliferation and negative regulation of apoptosis processes, 31 cell composition (CC), with targets mainly located in the plasma membrane and cytoplasm, molecular functions (MF) 52 in total, mainly related to protein binding, ATP binding, etc. KEGG enrichment analysis mainly involved such signaling pathways as Cancer, TNF, TRP and Toll-like receptor. Molecular docking revealed a good binding activity of the main active components to the core targets. Conclusions: This study preliminarily showed that the treatment of HUA with mulberry twig had the characteristics of multi-component, multi-target and multi-signal pathway, which provided a scientific basis for further study on the molecular mechanism of the treatment of HUA with the potential active components of mulberry twig.