Investigation of pharmacological mechanism of natural product using pathway fingerprints similarity based on “drug-target-pathway” heterogenous network

Natural products from traditional medicine inherit bioactivity from their source herbs. However, the pharmacological mechanism of natural products is often unclear and studied insufficiently. Pathway fingerprint similarity based on “drug-target-pathway” heterogeneous network provides new insight into Mechanism of Action (MoA) for natural products compared with reference drugs, which are selected approved drugs with similar bioactivity. Natural products with similar pathway fingerprints may have similar MoA to approved drugs. In our study, XYPI, an andrographolide derivative, had similar anti-inflammatory activity to Glucocorticoids (GCs) and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), and GCs and NSAIDs have completely different MoA. Based on similarity evaluation, XYPI has similar pathway fingerprints as NSAIDs, but has similar target profile with GCs. The expression pattern of genes in LPS-activated macrophages after XYPI treatment is similar to that after NSAID but not GC treatment, and this experimental result is consistent with the computational prediction based on pathway fingerprints. These results imply that the pathway fingerprints of drugs have potential for drug similarity evaluation. This study used XYPI as an example to propose a new approach for investigating the pharmacological mechanism of natural products using pathway fingerprint similarity based on a “drug-target-pathway” heterogeneous network. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13321-021-00549-5.