Deciphering molecular mechanism of fructus forsythiae against cardiovascular disorders through network pharmacology

Cardiovascular disorders are medical conditions that affect the overall cardiac health of hu-mans. These disorders are the leading cause of mortality in many countries worldwide, which makes them a liable threat to human health. For the treatment of cardiovascular disorders, the underlying mode of action of various herbs and phytochemicals are unknown. Fructus forsythiae is a traditional Chinese herb that has been used for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases. The potential targets were retrieved from a literature survey after which the targets related to cardiovascular diseases were identified. The PPIN was constructed using STITCH database and the gene ontology analysis was also performed using Cy-toscape and its plugin software. Forty compounds were identified to be involved in the treatment of cardiovascular disorders in Fructus forsythiae, where 145 of the potential target compounds were also re-trieved. From these 145 potential target, 53 of them were screened for their involvement in cardiovascular health. 10 GO terms also found to be associated with these targets. In the PPIN, the main hubs were found to be JUN, FOS, IL6, PTGS2, and VEGF-A, respectively. According to docking outcome, kaempferol has the lowest docking scores i.e.-6.78 with IL6. The conclusive findings of the study elucidate the potential mode of action of Fructus forsythiae in treating cardiovascular disorders, which may be attributable to the various biological processes like response to muscle stretch, hydrogen peroxide metabolic process, positive regulation of DNA replication, cellular response to inorganic substance, brown fat cell differentiation, regulation of fibroblast proliferation, response to mechanical stimulus, regeneration, muscle cell prolifera-tion, and cellular response to glucocorticoid stimulus. The docking results suggest that kaempferol has ex-cellent affinity with IL6. It suggests a potential of Fructus forsythiae in treating CVD, likely via IL6.