Molecular Mechanisms of TanshinoneIIA in Hepatocellular carcinomatherapy via WGCNA-based Network Pharmacology Analysis

Abstract

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a worldwide malignant tumor that caused irreversible consequences. The studies of Tanshinone IIA showed that Tanshinone IIA has played a notable role in HCC treatment. However, it is still to be investigated to discover the potential targets and associating mechanism of Tanshinone IIA against HCC. Methods: To analyze the correlation between genes and specific clinical features, we applied weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA), which can help us identify the targets of Tanshinone IIA related to the clinical features of Hepatocellular carcinoma. Results: We screened out 105 overlapping genes by integrating the predicted targets of Tanshinone IIA and the gene expression profile of HCC from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. For WGCNA, we used the RNA-seq profile of the overlapping genes and the related clinical information of HCC from TCGA. And 23 genes related to clinical tumor grade in the important module (R2 = 0.37) were imported for Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analysis and protein-protein interaction (PPI) analysis. Compared to the key genes in the significant module from WGCNA with the high connectivity nodes from the PPI network, we can analyze three hub genes, AURKB, KIF11, and PLK1, for further verification. We tested the binding of Tanshinone IIA to the targets of Hepatocellular carcinoma using Autodock Vina. The survival curve validated that the three hub genes represented a poor prognosis. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves demonstrated that the three hub genes were effective in diagnosis. The mRNA expression of the three hub genes was upregulated in the HCC than the normal. AURKB, KIF11 and PLK1 were further upregulated in advanced tumor stage and grade. Moreover, AURKB, KIF11 and PLK1 also had higher protein expression in HCC tissues. Conclusions: In the study, WGCNA revealed grade-specific gene modules, indicating that Tanshinone IIA probably plays its therapeutical effect in the differentiation process of HCC. And the study partly interpreted the pharmacological mechanism of Tanshinone IIA against HCC.