Network Pharmacological Study of Compound Kushen Injection in Esophageal Cancer

Aim: To provide new methods and ideas for the clinical application of integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine in the treatment of esophageal cancer. Background: Traditional Chinese medicine compound Kushen injection (CKI) has been widely used in the clinic with adjuvant radiotherapy and chemotherapy. However, the mechanism of action of CKI as adjuvant therapy for esophageal cancer has not yet been described. Methods: This study is based on network pharmacology, data mining, and molecular docking technology to explore the mechanism of action of CKI in the treatment of esophageal cancer. We obtained the effective ingredients and targets of CKI from the traditional Chinese medicine system pharmacology database and analysis platform (TCMSP) and esophageal cancer-related genes from the Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM) and GeneCards databases. Results: CKI mainly contains 58 active components. Among them, the top 5 active ingredients are quercetin, luteolin, naringenin, formononetin, and beta-sitostero. The target protein of the active ingredient was matched with the genes associated with esophageal cancer. The active ingredients targeted 187 esophageal cancer target proteins, including AKT1, MAPK1, MAPK3, TP53, HSP90AA1, and other proteins. Then, we enriched and analyzed the Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) and used AutoDockVina to dock the core targets and compounds. Finally, PyMOL and Ligplot were used for data visualization. Conclusion: This study provides a new method and ideas for the clinical application of integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine in the treatment of esophageal cancer.