Protein interaction network analysis of TGF-β signalling pathway enabled EMT process to anticipate the anticancer activity of curcumin

TGF-β signalling is a key mediator of epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) process and its up-regulation is identified as a hallmark of metastasis. Since TGF-β signalling pathway is known as a key therapeutic target in the treatment of EMT enabled cancer and the study aims at identification of key EMT genes by gene annotation tools and protein interaction network (PIN) to analyse the regulatory dynamics of an interactome. Meanwhile, the potency of curcumin against TGF-β signalling was evaluated by network pharmacology approach. Resultantly, 15 genes were identified as key regulators of TGF-β signalling pathway and seven were shortlisted as leading curcumin targets. Cumulatively, both approaches have justified the role of targets. Thus, curcumin was subjected to molecular docking with targets using AutoDock Vina. Wherein, curcumin has shown significant binding energy with targets EP300 and JUN (-7.1 and -6.4 kcal/mol) respectively indicating the potential anticancer property.