Putative target genes of each herb in SFJDC and NCP related target genes
The 124 candidate active components were imported into TCMSP database and Uniport database to identify the Putative target genes of each herb in SFJDC. One hundred and ten components were finally selected after removing 14 ingredients which did not link to any target genes. The target genes of 110 compounds were collected. 1705 genes were identified, 103 in PR, 209 in IR, 65 in HP, 1052 in RB, 75 in PCRR, 173 in FF and 27 in I. There were 1585 genes of the eight herbs overlapped, which was suggestive of potential interaction between the compounds of SFJDCA in the course of treatment. A total of 120 genes were identified after removing duplation (Table 3). And 251 NCP related target genes were identified from Gene Cards database (Table 4).
PPI network of SFJDC putative and NCP related target genes
In this study, we constructed the PPI network of SFJDC putative and NCP related target genes separately. The network of SFJDC putative target genes which minimum interaction score was set at 0.4 contained 119 nodes and 1108 edges which indicated the target genes interactions after removing the discrete points (Figure 2A). According the PPI network, the top thirty genes were listed in Figure 2B. After hiding the discrete points, NCP-related target genes PPI network contained 248 nodes and 1235 edges (Figure 2C). Similarly, the first 30 related genes were shown in Figure 2D.