Network Pharmacology insights into the Anti-Diabetic Mechanisms of Syzygium cumini Seeds in type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a progressive, multipathological and multifactorial disease. Syzygium cumini seeds (SCS) are used in T2DM management; however, the molecular mechanism is still unexplored. Recently, network pharmacology has emerged as a new approach to study the effects of natural products with the various targets underlying diseases. Therefore, the present study investigated the molecular mechanism of SCS in T2DM via a network pharmacology approach. The bioactive compounds present in SCS were retrieved from the published literature indexed in the PubMed and structure queried from the PubChem database. The protein targets of these genes were predicted via the SwissTargetPrediction web tool. The proteins involved in the pathogenesis of T2DM were retrieved from the TherapeuticTargetDisease database. Among the 10 bioactive compounds of SCS, the top five, on the basis of their degree of interaction with target proteins, are α-terpineol, ferulic acid, quercetin, 3,3',4'-tri-O-methylellagic acid and caffeic acid. KEGG pathway analysis revealed that twenty target proteins associated with SCS-T2DM were linked to 14 pathways among which important pathways are regulation of lipolysis, diabetic cardiomyopathy and the PPAR signaling pathway. This study demonstrated the multicomponent, multitarget, and multi-pathway properties of SCS, which can be used for further research into its mechanism in the treatment of T2DM.