title: Exploring the pharmacological mechanism of Yanghe Decoction on HER2-positive breast cancer by a network pharmacology approach.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Certain Chinese medicine formulae from traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) are effective for treating and preventing diseases in clinical practice. Yanghe Decoction (YHD) is a Chinese medicine formula that is used to treat breast cancer, especially HER-positive breast cancer; however, the active compounds, potential targets, and pharmacological and molecular mechanism of its action against cancer remain unclear. Therefore, further investigation is required.
  
  
  METHODS
  A network pharmacology approach comprising drug-likeness evaluation, oral bioavailability prediction, Caco-2 permeability prediction, multiple compound target prediction, multiple know target collection, breast cancer genes collection, and network analysis has been used in this study.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Four networks are set up, including HER2-positive breast cancer network, compound-compound target network of YHD, YHD-HER2-positive breast cancer network and compound-known target-HER2-positive breast cancer network, and some HER2-positive breast cancer and YHD related targets, clusters, biological processes and pathways are found. We also found some potential anti-cancer compounds.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our works successfully predict, illuminate and confirm the molecular synergy of YHD for HER2-positive breast cancer and found the potential HER2-positive breast cancer associated targets, cluster, biological processes and pathways. This study not only provide clues to the researcher who explores pharmacological and molecular mechanism of YHD acting on HER2-positive breast cancer, but also demonstrates a feasible method for discovering potential drugs from Chinese medicine formulae.
authors.affiliation: Hunan University of Chinese Medicine, Changsha 410208, Hunan Province, China. Electronic address: 2057188405@qq.com.
authors.forename: Liuting
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zeng
authors.affiliation: Hunan University of Chinese Medicine, Changsha 410208, Hunan Province, China. Electronic address: yklab2014@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Kailin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yang
mesh_terms: D000972:Antineoplastic Agents, Phytogenic / Q000494:pharmacology / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000235:genetics*; D018938:Caco-2 Cells; D004365:Drugs, Chinese Herbal / Q000494:pharmacology / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D005260:Female; D053263:Gene Regulatory Networks / Q000187:drug effects / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D000972:Antineoplastic Agents, Phytogenic; D004365:Drugs, Chinese Herbal; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases; C533613:yanghe; C508053:ERBB2 protein, human
keywords: Chinese medicine formulae; HER2-positive breast cancer; Network pharmacology; Traditional Chinese medicine; Yanghe Decoction