Study on the Prognosis Effect of Traditional Chinese Medicine Treatment in DR Patients Based on the Perspective of Network Pharmacology

Abstract

Diabetes damages the eye in many ways, but the most common eye complication is retinopathy. Of the 246 million people with diabetes worldwide, about 30% will be at risk of developing diabetic retinopathy. In addition to impairing vision, the presence of diabetic retinopathy also means an increased risk of life-threatening systemic vascular complications. To prevent the occurrence and development of diabetic retinopathy, the research and development of new drugs for diabetic retinopathy is the primary task. Because of its characteristics of holistic view and dialectical view, traditional Chinese medicine has a good effect in the treatment of complex diseases. However, due to the characteristics of complex components, numerous targets, and synergistic effects that are important, and its compound prescriptions, the modernization of traditional Chinese medicine has been hindered. The rise of network pharmacology in recent years provides a good opportunity for the development of traditional Chinese medicine. Network pharmacology aims to explore the relationship between drugs and diseases from a holistic perspective, discover drug targets, and guide the development of new drugs. In terms of methodology, network pharmacology has the characteristics of integrity and systematicness, which just coincides with the principle of consultation in traditional Chinese medicine. In this paper, from the perspective of the application of traditional Chinese medicine, TCMSP software was used to retrieve the active ingredients in traditional Chinese medicine, and the corresponding targets of the active ingredients were obtained. We then performed GO annotation analysis and KEGG pathway analysis on the targets using DAVID software. We further used Cytoscape software to build an active ingredient-target-pathway network model. Through network pharmacology research, it has been shown that Fufang Xueshuantong may treat diabetic retinopathy through multiple pathways such as intravascular growth factor signaling pathway, mitogen-activated protein kinase signaling pathway, and Toll sample receptor signaling pathway, reflecting the multicomponent traditional Chinese medicine compound and multitarget and multichannel characteristics. The research in this paper provides a theoretical basis for the pharmacological mechanism of traditional Chinese medicine in the treatment of diabetic retinopathy.