Abstract:  Objective  In order to explore the molecular mechanism of matrine in treating retinoblastoma based on network pharmacological analysis. Design  Network pharmacology analysis. Participants  Network database literatures related to the treatment of retinoblastoma with matrine. Methods Taking matrine as the object, the corresponding potential drug targets in matrine were obtained from Swiss Target Prediction database. Retinoblastoma-related targets were collected through the GeneCards, OMIM, and CTD database. Furthermore, core targets were screened by establishing protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks. Gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes (KEGG) enrichment analysis were performed. Finally, the molecular docking calculation was performed to evaluate the interaction between matrine and core targets. Main Outcome Measures  Core targets. Results  Matrine contained 100 targets. A total of 4419 targets for retinoblastoma were obtained. The topology analysis results of the PPI network showed that 6 main targets such as HSP 90AA1, HDAC2, BRD4, HDAC6, PARP1, JAK2. GO enrichment analysis found that Biological process (BP) mainly includes response to ketone, cellular response to nitrogen compound and regulation of hormone levels, etc; Cell components(CC) mainly include dendrite and histone deacety lase complex, etc; Molecular functions(MF) mainly include histone deacety lase activity, neurotransmitter receptor activity and growth hormone receptor binding. KEGG pathway analysis showed that it involved viral carcinogenesis, necroptosis, JAK-STAT signaling pathway, and PI3K-Aktsignaling pathway, etc. Molecular docking showed that matrine had good binding with the core targets. Conclusions  Matrine acts on targets such as HSP90AA1, HDAC2, JAK2, BRD4, HDAC6, and PARP1, and exerts therapeutic effects on retinoblastoma by regulating viral carcinogenesis, necroptosis, JAK-STAT signaling pathway, and PI3K-Aktsignaling pathway, etc.

Key words:  Matrine, Retinoblastoma, Network pharmacology