Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Diabetes. Nov 15, 2023; 14(11): 1672-1692
Published online Nov 15, 2023. doi: 10.4239/wjd.v14.i11.1672
Exploring the targets and molecular mechanism of glycyrrhetinic acid against diabetic nephropathy based on network pharmacology and molecular docking
Fan-Di Meng, Ling Yuan, Duo-Jie Xu, Meng-Ying Che, Shao-Zhang Hou, Dou-Dou Lu, Wen-Jing Liu, Yi Nan
Fan-Di Meng, Duo-Jie Xu, Meng-Ying Che, Dou-Dou Lu, Yi Nan, Traditional Chinese Medicine College, Ningxia Medical University, Yinchuan 750004, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, China
Fan-Di Meng, Wen-Jing Liu, Yi Nan, Key Laboratory of Ningxia Ethnomedicine Modernization, Ministry of Education, Ningxia Medical University, Yinchuan 750004, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, China
Ling Yuan, College of Pharmacy, Ningxia Medical University, Yinchuan 750004, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, China
Shao-Zhang Hou, Ningxia Key Laboratory of Craniocerebral Diseases, Ningxia Medical University, Yinchuan 750004, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, China
Author contributions: Meng FD, Yuan L, Xu DJ, Che MY, Hou SZ, and Lu DD designed the study; Meng FD, Yuan L, Lu DD, and Yi Nan conducted the study; Che MY and Hou SZ contributed new reagents and analytical tools; Meng FD, Yuan L, and Xu DJ analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript; and all authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by Ningxia Natural Science Foundation, No. 2022AAC02039; National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 81860894, 82260879, and 81674096; Ningxia Innovation Team of the Foundation and Clinical Researches of Diabetes and its Complications, No. NXKJT2019010.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Medical Ethics Review Committee of Ningxia Medical University (No. 2018-144).
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: Technical appendix, statistical code, and dataset available from the corresponding author at 20080011@nxmu.edu.cn. Participants gave informed consent for data sharing.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Yi Nan, MD, PhD, Professor, Traditional Chinese Medicine College, Ningxia Medical University, No. 1160 Shengli Street, Yinchuan 750004, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, China. 20080011@nxmu.edu.cn
Received: August 23, 2023
Peer-review started: August 23, 2023
First decision: September 14, 2023
Revised: September 25, 2023
Accepted: October 23, 2023
Article in press: October 23, 2023
Published online: November 15, 2023
Processing time: 78 Days and 17.2 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Diabetes nephropathy (DN) brings a huge burden to human health. Through network pharmacology, we found that glycyrrhetinic acid (GA) has a therapeutic effect on DN, and found 186 therapeutic targets. We speculated and verified that GA plays a role in treating DN by regulating phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/protein kinase B signaling pathway, inhibiting the proliferation of HK-2 cells, blocking the cell cycle in the G2/M phase, and reducing apoptosis of HK-2 cells. This study provides a new development direction for the treatment of DN.