Apigenin inhibits proliferation and differentiation of cardiac fibroblasts through AKT/GSK38 signaling pathway

Ethnopharmacological relevance: Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge ( S. miltiorrhiza ) is an important Traditional Chinese herbal Medicine (TCM) used to treat cardio-cerebrovascular diseases. Based on the pharmacodynamic substance of S. miltiorrhiza , the aim of present study was to investigate the underlying mechanism of S. miltiorrhiza against cardiac fibrosis (CF) through a systematic network pharmacology approach, molecular docking and dynamics simulation as well as experimental investigation in vitro . Materials and methods: A systematic pharmacological analysis was conducted using the Traditional Chinese Medicine Pharmacology (TCMSP) database to screen the effective chemical components of S. miltiorrhiza , then the corresponding potential target genes of the compounds were obtained by the Swiss Target Prediction and TCMSP databases. Meanwhile, GeneCards, DisGeNET, OMIM, and TTD disease databases were used to screen CF targets, and a protein-protein interaction (PPI) network of drug-disease targets was constructed on S. miltiorrhiza /CF targets by Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting Genes/Proteins (STING) database. After that, the component-disease-target network was constructed by software Cytoscape 3.7. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analysis were performed for the intersection targets between drug and disease. The relationship between active ingredient of S. miltiorrhiza and disease targets of CF was assessed via molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulation. Subsequently, the underlying mechanism of the hub compound on CF was experimentally investigated in vitro . Results: 206 corresponding targets to effective chemical components from S. miltiorrhiza were determined, and among them, there were 82 targets that overlapped with targets of CF. Further, through PPI analysis, AKT1 and GSK3 8 were the hub targets, and which were both enriched in the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway, it was the subpathways of the lipid and atherosclerosis pathway. Subsequently, compound-disease-genes-pathways diagram is constructed, apigenin (APi) was a top ingredients and AKT1 (51) and GSK3 8 (22) were the hub genes according to the degree value. The results of molecular docking and dynamics simulation showed that APi has strong affinities with AKT and GSK3 8. The results of cell experiments showed that APi inhibited cells viability, proliferation, proteins expression of alpha-SMA and collagen I/III, phosphorylation of AKT1 and GSK3 8 in MCFs induced by TGF 8 1. Conclusion: Through a systematic network pharmacology approach, molecular docking and dynamics simulation, and confirmed by in vitro cell experiments, these results indicated that APi interacts with AKT and GSK3 8 to disrupt the phosphorylation of AKT and GSK3 8, thereby inhibiting the proliferation and differentiation of MCFs induced by TGF 8 1, which providing new insights into the pharmacological mechanism of S . miltiorrhiza in the treatment of CF.