Abstract

Qing’E pills are a classical formula in traditional Chinese medicine that has the effect of tonifying the kidneys and strengthening the bones, first appearing in the tonic formulae in prescriptions of peaceful benevolent dispensary (10^th century CE). To preliminarily elucidate the potential mechanisms of Qing’E pills in the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis based on network pharmacology. The principal components and corresponding protein targets of Qing’E pills were searched on traditional Chinese medicine systems pharmacology, bioinformatics analysis tool for molecular mechanism-traditional Chinese medicine, SymMap and encyclopedia of traditional Chinese medicine and the compound-target network was constructed by Cytoscape 3.9.1. The targets of postmenopausal osteoporosis were searched on online mendelian inheritance in man, GeneCards, histidine triad nucleotide binding protein and DisGeNET databases. The intersection of compound target and disease target was obtained and the coincidence target was imported into the search tool for retrieval of interacting genes database to construct a protein-protein interaction network. We further performed gene ontology and Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes enrichment analyses on the targets. The 33 active compounds in Qing’E pills corresponded to 433 targets. 1647 targets were associated with postmenopausal osteoporosis disease. The active compounds with high degree values were quercetin, stearic acid and marine. The proteins with higher values in the protein-protein interaction network were mitogenactivated protein kinase 1, protein kinase B, phosphatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate 3-kinase catalytic subunit alpha, phosphoinositide-3-kinase regulatory 1, amyloid beta precursor protein, Src proto-oncogene, nonreceptor tyrosine kinase, mitogen-activated protein kinase 8, heat shock protein 90 alpha family class A member 1, epidermal growth factor receptor, and Janus kinase 2. Gene ontology and Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes analysis showed that Qing’E pills treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis involves signaling pathways that mainly include the tumor necrosis factor signaling pathway, osteoclast differentiation, Wnt signaling pathway and estrogen signaling pathway. We revealed the active ingredients and potential molecular mechanism of Qing’E pills in the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis and provided a reference for subsequent basic research