A network pharmacology-based strategy to discover the molecular mechanism of correlation between the treatment of bronchial asthma with Wenyang Huayin decoction and autophagy.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the key targets and mechanisms of the Wenyang Huayin decoction (WYHYD, ) in treating bronchial asthma with cold fluid retention syndrome using network pharmacology and animal experiments. METHODS: On the one hand, we used network pharmacology method to explored the chemical components of the WYHYD and the main targets of bronchial asthma were acquired. Besides, a protein interaction network was built after protein interaction analysis to find potential protein functional modules. Then, we constructed the "WYHYD component-bronchial asthma target-pathway" network. On the other hand, the experimental intervention was as follows: first, we formed a rat model of bronchial asthma. Thereafter, we used the WYHYD to treat the disease while observing autophagy-related indicators as the core target of network pharmacology. RESULTS: The network pharmacology revealed that there are 122 potential therapeutic targets in treating bronchial asthma with WYHYD. The biological processes mainly involved in the WYHYD included Gene Ontology: 0110032: positive regulation of G2/MI transition of the medical cell cycle etc. and four major signaling pathways were involved. During laboratory investigations, various signs and clinical manifestations of the rat model group were the same. After administering the WYHYD, lung function, pathological sections, inflammatory factors, and other microscopic indicators improved to varying degrees, providing evidence for the study results. Meanwhile, we verified that the core targets of WYHYD in treating asthma through the intervention of autophagy are tumor necrosis factor, caspase 8, interleukin 1 beta, sirtuin 1, phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase catalytic subunit type 3, C-C chemokine receptor type 7, L/YN kinase, and protein tyrosine kinase 2. CONCLUSION: This preliminary study revealed the treatment process of bronchial asthma with multi-component, multi-target, and multi-pathway mechanisms of the WYHYD.