Network pharmacology predicts potential mechanisms of 18β-glycyrrhetinic acid against triple-negative breast cancer

Triple-negative breast cancer(TNBC) with immunohistochemical results negative for estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor and the proto-oncogene Her-2 is the prominent malignant subtype of breast cancer, and targeted therapeutic agents acting on it still need to be investigated for addition. It is well known that natural products with a variety of pharmacological activities can be developed as potential antitumor agents. Among them, pentacyclic triterpenoid 18β-glycyrrhetinic acid(18β-GA) is widely recognized to have a wide range of pharmacological effects such as anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antitumor and antivirus. In this paper, we showed the potential targets and mechanisms of 18β-GA against TNBC through network pharmacology and molecular docking. Initially, network analysis revealed 85 common targets of 18β-GA in TNBC as shown in the “compound-target-disease” network employing Cytoscape 3.9.1 Further analysis identified TNF, IL-6, MMP9, ALB, PPARG, IGF-1, ESR1, STAT1, CCNA2 and PLK1 as the most crucial hub targets of 18β-GA against TNBC. Moreover, molecular docking simulations and functional enrichment analysis indicated the involvement of multiple signaling pathways in suppressing TNBC.