Mechanism of Caffeoylquinic Acids in the Treatment of Type II Diabetes Based on Network Pharmacology

Objective: Analyzing the mechanism of type II diabetes treatment with caffeoylquinic acids based on network pharmacology. Methods: Through literature mining and database search, the target points of caffeoylquinic acids and disease targets related to type II diabetes were obtained. The “component-disease-target” effect network of caffeoylquinic acids was drawn, and gene ontology (GO) analysis and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genome (KEGG) pathway analysis were carried out. The core target proteins and key components were used for the molecular docking verification. Results: Caffeoylquinic acids corresponded to 483 targets, 2214 type II diabetes-related targets, 211 common targets, and 37 key targets. The mechanism of action of caffeoylquinic acids in the treatment of type II diabetes mainly involved multiple pathways such as degradation of the extracellular matrix, activation of matrix metalloproteinases, collagen degradation, etc. It mainly involved AKT1, MMP3, MMP9, HIF1A, IGF1R, MAPK8 and other genes, these genes were usually reported to play a role mainly by regulating glucose metabolism and related proteins. The results of molecular docking verification between compounds and molecular targets were good, which verified the accuracy of the prediction of network construction. Conclusion: This study predicted the key targets and mechanism of action of caffeoylquinic acids to treat type II diabetes. It also provided a scientific basis for further research on the molecular mechanism of caffeoylquinic acids in the treatment of type II diabetes.