Abstract: Cassia semen is good at anti-oxidant, however the mechanism is unknown. The aim of the study was to investigate the anti-oxidative mechanisms of Cassia semen by the network pharmacological method. According to literature mining and TCMSP database of the Chinese medicine system, all the chemical components and the targets of Cassia semen were obtained. Then, the corresponding targets and the active components were selected according to oral bioavailability (OB) and drug-likeness (DL). GeneCards database was used to identify and predict the anti-oxidative targets of Cassia semen. STRING database and Cytoscape software were used to construct protein-protein interaction network. GO and KEGG enrichment analysis was preformed through DAVID database. The predicted targets were finally confirmed by molecular docking with AutoDock software. It was found that 11 ingredients and 34 targets were involved in 51 biological process GO terms (including oxidation-reduction process, positive regulation of reactive oxygen species metabolic process) and 154 KEGG pathways (including hepatitis B, p53 signaling pathway, TNF signaling pathway, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and pathway in cancer). The predicted targets of Cassia semen were confirmed by molecular docking, which indicated the reliability of the network pharmacology approach. In conclusion, Cassia semen, including rhein, aloe-emodin, stigmasterol, toralactone etc. Eleven active ingredients, played its anti-oxidative role by interacting with 34 targets including TP53, MYC, CASP3, ESR1, JUN etc, which suggested the characteristic of multi-targets and multi-pathways of Cassia semen and provided a reference for further investigation.

Key words: Cassia semen, network pharmacology, antioxidation, protein-protein interaction network