Abstract
Background: Lung cancer is a malignant tumor with a high incidence in China, especially non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), which is the main threat to human life, with terrible morbidity and mortality. The research on the treatment and mechanism of lung cancer and NSCLC has been the forefront and hotspot of research. Alpha-solanine (α-solanine) has anti-tumor effect, but its target and related mechanism remain to be elucidated. Methods: Network pharmacology was used to predict the possible targets and mechanisms of α-solanine on NSCLC. The targets were derived from TGCC database, and α-solanine targets were derived from PharmMapper. Gene-related potential pathways were identified by gene ontology and pathway enrichment analysis. Compound-target and target-pathway networks were constructed and validated by molecular biology and targeted energy metabolomics.Experiments were used to verify the results of network pharmacology in vitro, such as cell migration and invasion, cell apoptosis, immunofluorescenceand western blot.Results: Network pharmacology showed that there were 130 potential targets of α-solanine and NSCLC, and the main core was the pathway of glycolysis. In addition, experiment results showed that α-solanine inhibited cell proliferation, migration, invasion and promoted cell apoptosis. At the same time, α-solanine mainly regulated cell proliferation and survival throughglycolytic signaling pathway, which included GPI, ALDOA, TPI1, PKLR, LDHA and ALDH3. After α-solanine treatment, the expression of the above-mentioned proteins was reduced.Conclusion: Combination of network pharmacological prediction and experimental verification, α-solanine affected the expression of related proteins and cell functions by regulating the glycolytic pathway, thereby achieving anti- NSCLC effects.