Mechanism of Qingwei San in Treatment of Chronic Gastritis Disease Based on Network Pharmacology and experimental validation

Abstract Chronic gastritis (CG) is a type of chronic inflammatory response of the gastric mucosa. Qingwei San is mainly used to treat accumulation of heat in the stomach and the upward attack of fire, which has the effect of clearing the stomach and cooling the blood. This prescription is clinically effective in the treatment of chronic gastritis. However, its mechanism of action is not fully understood and needs further study. To explore effective compounds and the potential targets and molecular mechanism of Qingwei San (QWS) on chronic gastritis, the main active components of QWS were obtained through the TCMSP, ETCM and HERB databases. The target prediction of QWS was carried out through Swiss Target Prediction database. The related genes of Chronic gastritis were obtained through Genecards, OMIM and DisGeNet databases. The Cytoscape 3.8.1 software was used to draw drug-component-target network. Protein-protein interaction (PPI) network was constructed by String database. Based on Metascape database, GO and KEGG Pathway were enriched and analyzed to obtain the action pathway of QWS. The prediction results were verified by Western blotting. The 43 main active components and 175 targets were obtained from QWS. It can regulate epithelial cell infected Helicobacter pylori signal transduction, JAK-STAT signal pathway, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), TRP pathway and other inflammatory mediators through SRC, STAT3, PIK3CA, MAPK1 to treat chronic gastritis. QWS significantly reduced the TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-1β and increased the level of IL-10 in rats with CG. QWS could clearly reduce the mRNA level of JAK1, AKT1, VEGFA and EGFR. The result of Western blotting confirmed that QWS plays a role in the treatment of chronic gastritis by down regulating the expression levels of SRC and STAT3.The treatment of QWS for chronic gastritis has the characteristics of multi-component, multi-target and multi-channel effects, which provides a basis for further exploring the mechanism of QWS in the treatment of chronic gastritis.