In silico identification of natural products from Traditional Chinese Medicine for cancer immunotherapy

Advances in immunotherapy have revolutionized treatments in many types of cancer. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), which has a long history of clinical adjuvant application against cancer, is emerging as an important medical resource for developing innovative cancer treatments, including immunoth...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2021-02, Vol.11 (1), p.3332-3332, Article 3332
Main Authors: Cai, Chuipu, Wu, Qihui, Hong, Honghai, He, Liying, Liu, Zhihong, Gu, Yong, Zhang, Shijie, Wang, Qi, Fan, Xiude, Fang, Jiansong
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
631/114/2248
631/154
631/92/349
631/92/360
Baicalin
Cancer
Cancer immunotherapy
Chinese medicine
Herbal medicine
Humanities and Social Sciences
Immune response
Immunotherapy
Medical innovations
Microenvironments
multidisciplinary
Natural products
Pharmacology
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Traditional Chinese medicine
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Summary:Advances in immunotherapy have revolutionized treatments in many types of cancer. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), which has a long history of clinical adjuvant application against cancer, is emerging as an important medical resource for developing innovative cancer treatments, including immunotherapy. In this study, we developed a quantitative and systems pharmacology-based framework to identify TCM-derived natural products for cancer immunotherapy. Specifically, we integrated 381 cancer immune response-related genes and a compound-target interaction network connecting 3273 proteins and 766 natural products from 66 cancer-related herbs based on literature-mining. Via systems pharmacology-based prediction, we uncovered 182 TCM-derived natural products having potential anti-tumor immune responses effect. Importantly, 32 of the 49 most promising natural products (success rate = 65.31%) are validated by multiple evidence, including published experimental data from clinical studies, in vitro and in vivo assays. We further identified the mechanism-of-action of TCM in cancer immunotherapy using network-based functional enrichment analysis. We showcased that three typical natural products (baicalin, wogonin, and oroxylin A) in Huangqin ( Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi ) potentially overcome resistance of known oncology agents by regulating tumor immunosuppressive microenvironments. In summary, this study offers a novel and effective systems pharmacology infrastructure for potential cancer immunotherapeutic development by exploiting the medical wealth of natural products in TCM.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-021-82857-2