Uncovering pharmacological mechanisms of Phellinus linteus on focal segmental glomeruloscleosis rats through tandem mass tag-based quantitative proteomic analysis, network pharmacology analysis and experimental validation.

Objective: To explore the underlying molecular mechanism of ().

Methods: We used a tandem mass tag-based quantitative proteomic method to determine the differentially expressed proteins. Network pharmacology analysis was used to analysis the main components of and construct the compound-target network. Western blotting and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) were used to validate the analyses results.

Results: The expression levels of thrombospondin-1 (TSP-1) and transforming growth factor (TGF)-β1/Smad3 signaling pathway proteins were significantly upregulated in focal segmental glomeruloscleosis (FSGS) rats. The reduced the expression levels of TSP-1 and TGF-β1 signaling pathway proteins. Network pharmacology analysis revealed that protocatechualdehyde was the main active component. Subsequent and experiments validated the results of proteomic and network pharmacology analyses.

Conclusions: Our results suggested that may inhibit renal sclerosis by inhibiting TSP-1-activated TGF-β1 signaling and may have potential applications in the treatment of FSGS.