A network pharmacology approach to investigate the mechanisms of SiJunZi decoction in the treatment of gastric precancerous lesions

Objective: To find out the potential mechanisms of SiJunZi (SJZ) decoction in the treatment of gastric precancerous lesions (GPL). Methods: A network pharmacology approach was used to analyze the active compounds, drug targets and interacting pathways of SJZ decoction in treating GPL. The compounds and predicted targets of SJZ decoction were screened from TCMSP, and the disease targets were obtained from GeneCards. The therapeutic mechanisms of action of the SJZ decoction were analyzed by gene ontology (GO) enrichment, Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes pathway enrichment analyses. Results: The results show that 111 compounds and 90 targets were obtained in this work. These targets were further mapped to 654 GO biological process terms and 21 remarkably pathways. Active compounds, targets, and pathways were used to construct a compoundtarget network, a targetpathways network, and an integrated GPL pathway. These results indicated that SJZ decoction may treat the dysfunctions of GPL mainly from intervening in the mucosal inflammation, cell apoptosis process, and cell proliferation. Conclusions: This work provided a novel approach to understand the pathogenesis of GPL and revealed the therapeutic mechanisms of SJZ decoction, which facilitate the modernization of herbal medicine for complex diseases in the future.