The anticancer mechanism investigation of Tanshinone II(A) by pharmacological clustering in protein network

BACKGROUND: Cancer is the second most common cause of death globally. The anticancer effects of Tanshinone II(A) (Tan II(A)) has been confirmed by numerous researches. However, the underlying mechanism remained to be integrated in systematic format. Systems biology embraced the complexity of cancer; therefore, a system study approach was proposed in the present study to explore the anticancer mechanism of Tan II(A) based on network pharmacology. METHOD: Agilent Literature Search (ALS), a text-mining tool, was used to pull protein targets of Tan II(A). Then, pharmacological clustering was applied to classify obtained hits, the anticancer module was analysed further. The top ten essential nodes in the anticancer module were obtained by ClusterONE. Functional units in the anticancer module were catalogued and validated by Gene Ontology (GO) analysis. Meanwhile, KEGG and Cell Signalling Technology Pathway were employed to provide pathway data for potential anticancer pathways construction. Finally, the pathways were plotted using Cytoscape 3.5.1. Furthermore, in vitro experiments with five carcinoma cell lines were conducted. RESULTS: A total of 258 proteins regulated by Tan II(A) were identified through ALS and were visualized by protein network. Pharmacological clustering further sorted 68 proteins that intimately involved in cancer pathogenesis based on Gene Ontology. Subsequently, pathways on anticancer effect of Tan II(A) were delineated. Five functional units were clarified according to literature: including regulation on apoptosis, proliferation, sustained angiogenesis, autophagic cell death, and cell cycle. The GO analysis confirmed the classification was statistically significant. The inhibiting influence of Tan II(A) on p70 S6K/mTOR pathway was revealed for the first time. The in vitro experiments displayed the selectivity of Tan II(A) on HeLa, MDA-MB-231, HepG2, A549, and ACHN cell lines, the IC(50) values were 0.54 μM, 4.63 μM, 1.42 μM, 17.30 μM and 204.00 μM, respectively. This result further reinforced the anticancer effect of Tan II(A) treatment. CONCLUSIONS: The current study provides a systematic methodology for discovering the coordination of the anticancer pathways regulated by Tan II(A) via protein network. And it also offers a valuable guidance for systematic study on the therapeutic values of other herbs and their active compounds. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12918-018-0606-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.