Mechanism of Shuang-Huang-Lian Oral Liquid for Treatment of Mycoplasmal Pneumonia in Children on Network Pharmacology

Background and Objective: Mycoplasmal pneumonia (MP) can lead to inflammation, multiple system immune damage, and mixed infection in children. The pathogenesis is still unclear. Shuang-Huang-Lian (SHL) oral liquid can treat acute upper respiratory tract infection, acute bronchitis and light pneumonia. However, our current understanding of the molecular mechanisms supporting its clinical application still lags behind due to the lack of researches. It is difficult to understand the overall sensitization mechanism of SHL oral liquid. The purpose is to explain the mechanism of action of drugs in this study, which is useful to ensure the safety of medication for children. Methods: The therapeutic mechanism of SHL oral liquid was investigated by a system pharmacology approach integrating drug-likeness evaluation, oral bioavailability prediction, ADMET, protein-protein interaction worknet, Gene Ontology enrichment analysis, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes database pathway performance, C-T-P network construction and molecular docking. Results: A total of 18 active ingredients contained in SHL oral liquid and 53 major proteins were screened out as effective players in the treatment of M. pneumoniae disease through some related pathways and molecular docking. The majority of targets, hubs and pathways were highly related to anti-mycoplasma therapy, immunity and inflammation process. Conclusions: This study shows that the anti-bacterial effect of SHL oral liquid has multicomponent, multi-target and multi-pathway phenomena. The proposed approach may provide a feasible tool to clarify the mechanism of traditional Chinese medicines and further develop their therapeutic potentials.